ARGENTINE 



PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 



A LECTURE 



BY 



ELMER L. CORTHELL, dr. sc. 

CONSULTING ENGINEER NATIONAL PUBLIC WORKS OF ARGENTINE. 



1 Nassau Street, New Yokk City. 



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New York : 
BOWNE & CO., PRINTERS. 

1903. 



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Two years in Argentine as the Consulting 
Enghmeer of National Public Works. 



Mr. Chairman* Ladies and Gentlemen : 

In 1899, the Argentine Government, having con- 
ceived an extensive project of River and Harbor 
improvement, and made the preliminary surveys, 
requested the U. S. Government to recommend an 
engineer who would come to Argentine and assist 
the Government by his advice in forming and exe- 
cuting the plans. 

I had the honor of being selected for this position. 
After carrying out a two years' contract with that 
Government, I have returned to my own country 
with some knowledge of the conditions and some 
experience in meeting them which form the basis 
of this lecture. 

At the final general session of the International 
Navigation Congress at Diisseldorf, July 4th, this 
last year, when called upon to respond for the 
Argentine Republic, I used the following words : 

"It may not be out of place to make a few com- 
parisons between the two countries, which by a 
singular coincidence I have the honor to represent 
— one as a delegate to this Congress ; the other as 
a member of the Permanent International Commis- 
sion. One of these countries is the Argentine Re- 
public and the other the United States of North 
America. 

"Both are cosmopolitan, both have been populated 
largely from Europe ; both had the task of sup- 
planting savagery by civilization. The red races 
in each case had to give way to the Caucasian, or 
be assimilated with it. Both have great plains and 
immense river systems. The greatest river valley 
of the one is almost exactly equal to that of the 
other. Similar causes have produced nearly similar 
hydraulic conditions in each case. Both countries 
have temperate climates, both great mountain 



ranges ; both some extent of arid lands and run- 
ning waters for irrigation. Both immense areas of 
rich soils, made so by similar beneficent causes ; 
both have extensive pasture lands and millions of 
cattle, sheep and horses. In their cereals they are 
competitors with each other in the food markets of 
Europe — one is great and ambitious, the other 
smaller but earnestly devoted to progress and am- 
bitious to fulfill its high destiny among the nations 
of the earth." 

By comparisons of the unknown with the known 
we appreciate and learn, and for that reason I shall 
compare Argentine with the United States in re- 
spect to some of its more important features, and 
you will see that the two great countries have much 
in common. 

You must, if possible, imagine yourselves in 
a situation exactly opposite from yours in the 
United States in regard to the sun and the 
poles of the earth ; you must look north for warm 
winds and south for cold ones. Your winter will 
begin in June and your summer in December. The 
north side of your house will be sunny and the 
south side in the shade. As you travel north from 
Buenos Aires, the Capital, it will grow warmer ; 
as you go south you will at last reach the glaciers. 
Your north star will be changed to the southern 
cross, and in all these changes you will at first be 
lost. You must also locate yourself geographic- 
ally, and recollect that the northern line of Argen- 
tine is in about the same latitude south of the 
Equator as Havana is north of it, and that the 
southern limit of Argentine corresponds to Labra- 
dor and Kamscatka ; and that Buenos Aires, Cape- 
town and Melbourne are all in about the same 
latitude. Also that there are east and west differ- 
ences. Buenos Aires is in about the same longitude 
as Cape Breton Island, east of Nova Scotia, and 
the circle of longitude along the most westerly 
boundary of Argentine nearly passes through Au- 
gusta, Maine ; and the course from the entrance of 
the River Plate to Liverpool is nearly a straight 
line. In order that the location of Argentine in 
reference to other South American countries may 
be appreciated, it should be stated that Buenos 
Aires is as far south of, say, Caracas, the present- 
center of revolutionary and unstable South Amer- 
ica, as the north end of Lake Winnipeg, in Mani- 
toba, is north of Caracas, or as far as the northern 
part of Greenland is north of New Orleans. 



With this orientation of ourselves on the West- 
ern Hemisphere, and with these remarkable differ- 
ences in position, let me call your attention to a 
very remarkable similarity wherein will be seen 
and appreciated the beneficent work of the Great 
Creator long before at least the present race of 
mankind inhabited the two continents. 

In a paper read before the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science, at Buffalo, Aug. 
5, 1896, upon the delta of the Mississirrpi, I de- 
scribed the ancient conditions of that great river in 
substance as follows : 

First, a deep shore line of the Gulf of Mexico, 
when the site of G-alveston was far out in the waters 
and the coast was 100 miles inland from the site of 
New Orleans, — a wide and deep estuary 1,000 miles 
long, reaching into the heart of the continent to be- 
tween St. Louis and Cairo, where, at Cape Gira- 
deau, it met the ridge of the Ozark Mountains, 
stretching across the valley and holding back the 
ancient Great Lake, which covered Chicago 200 feet 
deep and spread over all the great Prairie States 
and received and distributed over its bed the im- 
mense sediments of the Missouri and other great 
rivers in the North. Then came the cyclic change lift- 
ing Florida out of the water and turning continental 
drainage north, cutting its way through the allu- 
vion to Hudson's Bay. Then the breaking down 
of the Ozark barrier ; the draining of the submerged 
area ; the subsequent filling of the Estuary and the 
advance of the alluvial lands into the Gulf to their 
present line, 110 miles beyond New Orleans. A 
great and wonderful beneficence for the use and 
convenience of man by the Great Architect of the 
universe. 

Had not my engineering experience upon the 
Mississippi River and its delta drawn my attention 
to this extremely interesting ancient history of the 
Great River of North America, I might not have 
been so deeply impressed by its remarkable simi- 
larity with that of the Parana River in South 
America ; and for both histories I am indebted to 
Engineering investigators ; Gen. Warren in the 
first instance, and Col. Geo. Earl Church, an Ameri- 
can Engineer living in London, in the second 
instance, the latter probably better acquainted by 
personal contact with the geography and hydrau- 
lics of South America than any living man. 

I am indebted to him and the Royal Geographic 
Society, of which he is a Director and a Correspond- 



6 

ent, for most of what follows in relation to this 
ancient history of the great rivers of Argentine 
and Central South America. 

There are four great breaks in the mountain - 
fringed continent which we call its great commer- 
cial doorways. The Orinoco, the Amazon, the La 
Plata and the deep indentation of Bahia Blanca, 
— one in Venezuela, one in Brazil and two in Ar- 
gentine. The three river basins occupy two-thirds 
of the entire area of South America. 

The two with which we are most interested in 
this lecture are the La Plata and Amazon, which 
have areas respectively of about 1,300,000 square 
miles and 2,722,000. But if we deduct from the 
latter the valley of the Tocantins, which has no 
direct connection with it, the valley of the 
Amazon is 2,368,000 square miles ; its principal 
branch, the Madeira, has a volume of discharge 
nearly equal to the Amazon itself, and at the falls, 
which I shall refer to later, it carries annually a 
volume equal to that of the La Plata, which has a 
minimum flow of about 53^,000 cubic feet per sec- 
ond and a maximum of over 2,000,000 — a river 
80 per cent, larger than the Mississippi, the 
Father of Waters, if Ave compare their mean an- 
nual discharges, the former being about 288 cubic 
miles and the latter 156 cubic miles. The Parana 
("the mother of the sea" in Indian language), 
the principal affluent of the La Plata, is itself 4-6% 
larger than the Mississippi, its mean annual dis- 
charge being about 230 cubic miles. 

What a river the La Plata must have been in 
ancient times, when it had a maximum discharge 
of If. 000,000 cubic feet per second, well up towards 
the modern Amazon, estimated to be 5,297,000, 
and greater than the ancient Amazon ! 

I have described the ancient conditions of the 
Mississippi— the G-ulf of Mexico as a great estuary 
and a deep shore line extending well into the heart 
of the North American Continent. The same con- 
ditions existed in the contour line of South America 
in the La Plata estuary. It extended l,lfi0 miles 
into the Continent, and was 400 miles wide— eleven 
times greater than the Empire State. It was the 
great Pampean Sea, receiving the drainage not only 
of the present Parana and its tributaries, but of 
the great Madeira River with its immense dis- 
charge of waters and sedimentary matters — the 
source of great alluvial formations, discharging 
into a sea two-thirds the size of the Mediterranean. 



When, in the processes of Nature, the great un- 
derwater plains of rich soil had been formed during 
the comparatively short period of less than 100,000 
years, a dam was thrown across the Madeira by the 
rivers Grande and the Parapiti coming down from 




Ancient Pampean Sea and Lake Mojos. 



the Andes, and a deposit more than 170 feet deep 
occurred forming this dam, which produced the 
ancient Lake Mojos with an area of about 115fi00 
square miles, larger than that of the Great Lakes 
of North America combined, which is less than 
94.000. 

The remarkable action of these rivers and the 
changes caused by it is graphically told by Col. 
Church in his paper upon u Argentine Geography 
and the Ancient Pampean Sea." 

" The Grande and the Parapiti entered the plain 
with a northern trend to contest with the great 
river of the north the possession of the gap. They 
struck it almost at a right angle, and slowly 
pushed their rival eastward over against the Chaco 
base of the Chiqnitos sierras. Here the final con- 
flict must have taken place, as the Grande and 



8 

Parapiti threw their dam across the outlet of the 
Mojos River, thus cutting off its exit into the 
ancient sea. No doubt the giant stream waged 
fierce war for thousands of years to keep its chan- 
nel open, alternately sweeping away the barrier 
and again yielding to the ceaseless volume of sand 
and clay, which, visible to-day, confirms the vic- 
tory of the Grande and Parapiti. The dam having 
finally become permanent, the formation of the 
ancient Lake Mojos was assured. When it reached 
the level of the lip of Guajara-mirim, its waters 
commenced to tumble over it and carve their way 
to the Amazon. Since then huge volumes of allu- 
vium have poured down the northern slopes of the 
Bolivian Andes ; the ancient lake is now almost 
loaded with material, but it is not yet entirely ob- 
literated. The muddy silt which covers the sur- 
face of the basin is so fine that, when an Indian 
goes up stream to the mountains, his friends ask 
him to bring back a stone that they may see what 
it is like. 

" Since forming the dam, the Rio Grande has 
slowly been returning westward down the counter- 
slope which its own alluvium creates." 

During the x>rocess we have described, the 
Ancient Lake and the Pampean Sea were connected 
and their relation was similar to that of the Black 
Sea and the Mediterranean. Traces of it are still 
observable, notably the great, low, flooded morass 
of Xarayas on the upper Paraguay River, and the 
ancient delta of the Parana, including the Ybara 
lagoon. The Salina Grande was also an arm of it 
— a great inland fiord. The sea, moreover, must 
have covered large areas of Paraguay, Corrientes, 
Entre Rios and Uruguay, and, before the uplifting 
of the country, it extended southwest to the rivers 
Chadi-Leofu and the Colorado, lapping round the 
southern slope of the Ventana range, until the 
curved rim, concave to the northeast, which con- 
nects this with the Sierra de Cordova, was suffi- 
ciently elevated to completely cut off its south- 
western extension. 

This range was high nnough to lodge the glacial 
rocks coming from the Andes, one of which at Tan- 
dil is so poised and delicately balanced that the 
hand can rock it, but it cannot be dislodged. This 
range later prevented the entrance of the destruct- 
ive sea, protecting the great area from its waves. 

Then came another factor into the beneficent 
problem of the Creator. Instead of draining the 



9 

waters from the great deposits under the Pampean 
Sea, as He did in North America, He lifted the 
Andes higher, and with them their Atlantic slopes, 
until the latter were ultimately lifted to their pres- 
ent level, forming the ''Plains of the Pampas," 
the soil of which is 50 feet deep and of surpassing 
richness — an area of 600,000 square miles, one-fifth 
the size of the United States and five times that of 
Great Britain. Thus by cyclic changes in the 
Northern Hemisphere, and by fin vial and sedi- 
mentary action and seismic changes in the Southern 
Hemisphere, have been formed the great interior 
agricultural regions of the United States and 
Argentina. 

Let me now quote from Mr. Revy's work on 
" Hydraulics of Great Rivers " (Argentine rivers 
which he surveyed) where he compares the rivers 
as we now find them with others well known. 

" Great as the volume of the Parana River at its 
lowest summer level is, immense in comparison to 
the largest European river, and much larger than 
that of all the European rivers put together, it is 
but a small fraction of its flood volume daring ex- 
ceptional rises ; and we can only wonder at the 
magnitude of the sources, which for months, nay 
for whole years together, pour forth inconceivable 
masses of sweet water, every drop of which has 
been raised by the power of the sun from the Pa- 
cific and Atlantic Oceans above the tops of the 
highest mountains of Brazil and the Andes. 

' ' To convey an idea of the magnitude of the 
rivers which have been considered and analyzed in 
the preceding chapters, we have shown on Plate V 
several of the larger known rivers, such as the Dan- 
ube and Thames of Europe, and the Mississippi of 
North America. They are all drawn to the same 
scale, and their relative size may somewhat be ap- 
preciated. The Mississippi is not unlike the Uru- 
guay in dimensions and other features — we have 
similarity in width, depth, currents and fall, al- 
though the North American is the larger of the two. 
Comparing, however, the Parana with the Missis- 
sippi, the former might claim the latter as his ec- 
centric daughter under fourteen. The low water 
dimensions measure a river's greatness, although 
things of different natures and character do not bear 
strict comparison. What we, however, understand 
by greatness is possessed in an exceptional degree 
by the Parana." 



.0 



In order, further, to compare the Parana River 
with others, it may be stated that its annual flow is 
double that of the Ganges, three times that of the 
Saint Lawrence, four times that of the Danube, 
and Ave times that of the Nile. We have records 
of 608 cubic on lies in one year. 

There are differing conditions of importance be- 
tween the Parana and the Mississippi, explaining 
the causes of the greater discharge of the Parana. 
While they both flow South, one flows from colder 
to warmer and the other from warmer to colder 
regions ; and it is in the warmer regions in both 
cases that the rainfall is the greater. On the Mis- 
sissippi, in the Northern regions, where we And 
the greatest drainage area, the rainfall is about 35 
inches per annum ; in the Southern, where the area 
is less, the rainfall is 60 inches per annum. With 
the Parana there is a rainfall of about 60 inches in 
the Northern part, where the drainage area is 
greater, and about 40 inches in the Southern part, 
where it is less. 

The length of the Parana River is about 3000 
miles ; its navigable length, between Cuyaba in 
in the North and the mouth of the Parana in the 
delta of the La Plata, is 1825 miles. The Uruguay 
River, from San Javier to the delta of the La Plata, 
has a navigable length of 603 miles. The Parana 




Falls of Y-ffuazit. 



River is made up of the two important rivers which 
unite at the City of Corrientes ; the Paraguay and 



11 

the Alto Parana. The length of the latter above 
Corrientes, to the falls of the Yguazu, is 365 miles, 
and it is navigable nearly to that point. These 
wondrous falls excel in beauty, as well as exceed 
in dimensions, the Niagara Falls. 

The latter are 160 feet high, as a maximum, and 
four-fifths of a mile long, including Goat Island. 
The Y-guazu. are 213 feet high in one leap and 106 
feet in two leaps, and 2 1/3 miles long, with, at 
times, an immense volume of water. 

The view before you is from a painting by a well- 
known Bern painter, Mr. Methfessel, who was en- 
gaged to come to Argentine, visit the Falls and 
make a large painting for the La Plata Museum. 

The gorgeous and varicolored foliage of the lux- 
uriant subtropical vegetation, which abounds on 
all sides, adds a charm to the falls. They rank 
among the most beautiful and wonderful works of 
the Creator. 

The remolinos, or whirlpools, below the falls equal 
the famous whirlpool at Niagara. 

The Uruguay is an entirely different river, in 
every respect, from the Parana. It is at times a 
mighty river rivaling the Parana ; at others it sinks 
into comparative insignificance. The Parana is a 
great river at all times 

The Parana is a type of a truly great river ; 
the Uruguay represents a mighty torrent of ex- 
traordinary dimensions. 

The Uruguay rises near the Atlantic Seaboard in 
Brazil, in the Sierra del Mar, then runs west to the 
highland of the territory of Missiones. These 
highlands prevent it from uniting with the Alto 
Parana River at that point, which is only about 
68 miles distant. Along 600 miles of its course 
from San Javier to Concordia, the bed of the river 
is filled with rocky ridges, which, at low water, 
prevent continuous navigation, but during the floods, 
which are quite sudden but not long continued, 
the river is everywhere navigable. The river rises, 
in floods, at Concordia about 46 feet. Compared 
with the Parana, it is a clear stream, carrying very 
little sediment in suspension. The Parana is an 
entirely different river. Its source being in the 
tropical and rainy region of Brazil, on the flanks of 
the Andes, its floods are much longer continued. 
At the confluence of the Parana and the Alto Pa- 
rana at Corrientes, the rise of the floods is about 33 
feet ; at Kosario, 225 miles above Buenos Aires, it 
is from 19.7 to 23 feet or 23 1/2 feet in extreme 



12 

floods. When these occur, the river is about 23 
miles wide, covering the entire country with a depth 
of 6 to 10 feet, and extending to the highlands of 
the Province of Entre Rios. 

The physical characteristics of the bed of the 
river are, consequently, entirely different from those 
of the Uruguay ; the bed of the latter is stable, 
that of the former very unstable. The sedimentary 
matters carried in suspension, however, are very 
much less than those of the Mississippi ; probably 
only one-tenth of the amount carried in the Missis- 
sippi in times of flood For this reason the changes 
in the bed and banks are less radical ; the most 
noticeable change is the movement of the islands 




River Parana from Grain Elevator. 

• 

and bars down stream. For example, the Island 
of Espinillo, in front of the City of Rosario, lying 
in the middle of the river and about 2 1/2 miles 
long, has moved, flanking, down stream about 2 1/2 
miles in the last 50 years, and by this movement 
the advancing bar of the island has approached the 
river bank in front of Rosario and closed up the 
navigation channel. 

The maximum velocity in great floods often 
reaches 6 1/2 feet per second, although usually it 
is much less, equal to that of the lower Mississippi. 

Both rivers are susceptible of improvement by 
dredging, the one to Asuncion, which is 842 miles 
above the mouth, and the second to Concordia, 
which is 230 miles above its mouth. In the Parana 
there is nothing but sand to be removed through- 
out its entire length ; in the Uruguay there are 



13 

several places where it is necessary to remove rock 
and gravel. But, generally, the channel can be 
deepened by hydraulic, or suction, dredging. 

The National Government is under obligation, 
by the law passed by Congress for building the 
Port of Rosario, to make and maintain a depth of 
21 feet at low water in the Parana River from the 
head of the Delta to Rosario, and in the Delta of 
the La Plata to Buenos Aires a depth of 19 feet at 
low water, which is about 21 feet at mean high 
tide. It has been proposed to make and maintain 
a channel of the following dimensions : From the 
mouth of the two rivers, at the Island of Martin 
Garcia, at the head of the La Plata estuary, to 
Rosario, a depth of 21 feet and a width of 328 
feet. Rosario to Santa Fe, 292 miles above Martin 
Garcia, 19 feet deep and 328 feet wide ; Santa Fe 
to Corrientes, 10 feet deep, and the same depth to 
Asuncion. Santa Fe, or its seaport Colastine, is 
the head of ocean navigation ; above that point it 
is river navigation by steam boats. 

On the Uruguay River it is proposed to make a 
channel 19 feet deep and 328 feet wide, from Mar- 
tin Garcia to Concepcion del Uruguay, 137 miles 
above Martin Garcia, and thence 15 feet deej) to 
Colon, and 9 feet deep and 8 feet over the rock to 
Concordia, which is 230 miles above Martin 
Garcia. 

The low water plane, or zero, in both rivers is 
that of extraordinary low water, so that, gener- 
ally, the low water does not reach this plane within 
about half a metre to one metre. Consequently, 
there can generally be depended upon from 2 to 3 
feet more water than I have stated. Between 
Rosario and Buenos Aires, there are now no bars 
over which there is not 21 feet of water at Zero, al- 
though two of them need to be dredged and buoyed 
in order to make a straighter channel. This the 
Government is prepared to do. 

As to the Port of Rosario : a contract has re- 
cently been made, under the Law of Congress, to 
make a modern seaport at this point, with all the 
latest and best facilities for handling cargo. The 
commerce of Rosario is at present 11/2 million 
tons per annum. It is a very important exporting 
point for cereals, and when the rjort is completed 
according to the plans adopted, it is expected to be 
an important importing port as well. There are 
ports below Rosario, such as Villa Constitucion, 
San Nicolas and San Pedro, and above Rosario, 



14 

Diamante, Santa Fe, Colastine and Parana. On 
the Uruguay River, Concordia, at the head of 
steamboat navigation, is an important importing 
and exporting port for that section of the country. 
Its registered tonnage is about half a million tons, 
and the actual weight tonnage about 100,000. 

The country between the Parana and Uruguay 
rivers is practically isolated from the rest of the 
country, and its situation is very similar to the 
country lying between the Euphrates and the 
Tigris ; for that reason it has been called the 
" Mesopotamia Argentina" 

There are at present in this area three railroad 
systems, the Argentine North Eastern, which runs 
from Corrientes, on the Parana, to Monte Caseros, 
on the Uruguay, and from there to Santo Tome, on 
the same river ; the Argentine Eastern from Monte 
Caseros to Concordia, and the Entre Rios Railroads, 
the main line of which connects Parana and Con- 
ception del Uruguay, with branches to Victoria, 
G-ualeguay, Gualeguaychu. and Villaguay. Within 
a few months a connecting line will be completed to 
Concordia, forming a link between the Argentine 
Eastern and the Entre Rios systems. It has been 
proposed to unite these three systems and to ex- 
tend the Argentine North Eastern from Santo 
Tome to Posadas on the Alto Parana, passing 
through the colonies which the Government is 
establishing in that territory. Posadas is its 
capital. The Central Paraguay Railroad, which 
runs in a south-easterly direction from Asuncion, 
it is proposed to extend to Villa Encarnacion, a 
small town on the opposite side of the River from 
Posadas ; to change the gauge, which is 5 1/2 feet 
to the normal gauge of the other three railroads, 
which is 4 feet 8 1/2 inches ; make a transfer by car 
float at Posadas ; extend the Entre Rios Railroads 
to a port of deep water, either on the Parana or 
Uruguay, and do a "through" business between 
Asuncion and this new seaport, which will be 
only a few hours distant from Buenos Aires. 

With the Parana River improved to Asuncion, 
and the Uruguay improved to Concordia ; with the 
railway systems united and extended to a good 
seaport, this great interior district of the country 
will have an ideal system of transportation, and 
the shipper may take his choice, to ship by rail or 
by water, thus establishing a very useful and rea- 
sonable competition between water and railway, to 
the great advantage of the people. 



15 

In reference to the Rio de la Plata itself, it is an 
immense shoal estuary. It is the depositing ground 
of the great Parana River. This estuary, in a not 
very remote period, extended above Santa Fe ; this 
is shown by the comparison of old maps, of which 
92 have been collected and copied and placed in the 
Library of the Ministry of Public Works. These 
maps date from the year 1529 to 1885. Even in this 
comparatively short period, remarkable changes 
are shown in the Delta of the Parana, which is 
now a true delta, almost exactly in the form of the 
Greek letter a. It is 40 miles across its face; it 



DELTA ok thk RIO PARANA H ,.. puB LI CA OI11KX 1'AL DEL CR LTG FAY 

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC \ <-"'" 



E N T It E RIO 




i> B O V I X C 1 A JU E BUENOS AIRE 



La Plata Superior and Delta of Parana 

slowly extends itself in the head of the estuary, 
and through the Delta nearly a dozen outlets of the 
Parana River find their way. It is very much like 
the deltas of the Danube, Ganges and Mississippi. 

The superficial extension of the Rio de la Plata 
exceeds 18,000 square miles; it is about 186 miles 
long and varies in width from 186 miles at the 
Ocean, between Capes San Antonio and Santa 
Maria, to 1.12 miles at the extreme point of the 
head of the estuary, at Punta Gorda. 

To understand the physical conditions of the es- 
tuary, it is necessary to divide the Rio de la Plata 
into Superior and Inferior, or upper and lower. 
The Rio de la Plata Superior lies above a line ex- 
tending between La Plata and Colonia, the Inferior 
below that line to the sea. Over a distance of 
about 25 to 30 miles between Martin Garcia and the 
anchorage of Buenos Aires, there is a normal 
depth through the best channels of from 16 to 20 
feet at low water. 






16 

The National Government has recently com- 
pleted the dredging over the San Pedro bar lying 
in this region, increasing the depth of 18 1/2 feet 
to 21 feet, where there was formerly only 15 feet. 
In the Canal de las Limetas, or JNuevo Canal, by 
natural forces and by the constant movement 
of steamers, there has been obtained a depth 
of about 19 1/2 feet, or 21 1/2 feet at mean high 
tide. Opposite Farallon, a rocky point on the 
Uruguay shore and opposite Buenos Aires, there 
is, along the course of navigation, about 19 1/2 feet 
at low water. The Government has buoyed with 
luminous buoys the entire route from Buenos 
Aires to the mouths of the Parana River, the 
Bravo and the Guazu, and has placed a floating 
semaphore below Martin Garcia for the benefit of 
navigation, recording constantly by signals by day 
and by night the depth of water in the channel. 
It is now proposing to connect this semaphore by a 
telephone cable with the telegraph cable of Martin 
Garcia, so that communication may be established 
between the ships lying at anchor (waiting for the 
tide, or passing near the semaphore), and the 
offices of the agents at Buenos Aires or Monte- 
video. 

A careful study of the different conditions in the 
Delta of the La Plata shows that the only method 
of improvement in such a vast expanse of water is 
by dredging and buoying the best channels. 

In the lower Rio de la Plata there are very 
serious conditions. A bar on which there is a least 
depth of 20 feet at low tide lies between the an- 
chorage of Buenos Aires and Montevideo ; the 
material in this bar is very soft and vessels plough 
their way through it on ordinary tides, but the 
great extent of the bar is the serious condition. 
Between the 24 feet curves, straight through this 
bar, there is a distance of 24 sea miles. To make a 
channel by dredging would require the removal of 
probably 10 1/2 to 13 million cubic yards ; and it 
is very doubtful if, on such broad extension of 
water and in such soft material, a channel could be 
maintained. But it is hoped that the plan now 
proposed of anchoring five lightships in the line of 
navigation, and in the direction of the current, and 
which can be seen from each other, will have an 
effect upon the bar by the continued movement of 
deep steamers through it. The examination of the 
Rio de la Plata Inferior has been intrusted by the 
Government to the Ministry of Marine, which is 



17 

making very extensive surveys and examinations 
over the entire area. 

The estuary at this point is 46 miles wide, and 
five high towers on shore and others anchored 
within the area to be surveyed are necessary in 
order to cover this great Punto Indio bank. 



These are the general x^hysical conditions of the 
Rio de la Plata and its great tributaries. 

The very important project of making a deeper 
channel of access to the Port of Buenos Aires and 
enlarging the port, to give it not only a greater area 
and more facilities, but greater depth in the en- 
larged part, is now before the Government, and 
the plans for it — made by myself — have been ap- 
proved. There are alternative projects to meet the 
commercial necessities of the country ; one is to 
deepen the present Port of La Plata and endow it 
with more facilities, where vessels drawing 24 or 25 
feet may come in and go out at any stage of the 
tide ; or to build a deep water port, with a depth of 
not less than 30 feet, on the seaboard outside of the 
difficult conditions of the Rio de la Plata. A con- 
cession has been granted, and the project submitted 
to the National Government, for an artificial port 
in the great bay of Samboronbon, which is nearly 
opposite Montevideo, and another concession for a 
port at Mar Chiquita, near Mar del Plata on the 
ocean, has also been granted. 

In addition to the great drainage basin of the La 
Plata, there is further south the large rivers, Rio 
Negro and Colorado, which, combined, have a 
drainage area of 464,000 square miles. The channels 
are not susceptible of improvement for a large com- 
merce, but they will in the future furnish water for 
an extensive irrigation and steamboat navigation. 

The hvdraulic conditions are great, but the moun- 
tains are greater and have exerted a powerful in- 
fluence on the continent, not only its climate and 
its running waters, but upon mankind. On these 
lofty table lands lived the Incas and flourished 
their great empires. Among the clouds have fought 
for supremacy the Incas troops and the Spanish 
soldiers, and here, too, have the struggles for liberty 
taken jDlace ; here Bolivar and San Martin led their 



18 



troops to victory and continental freedom from the 
domination of Spain. 

An orographic map of South America ['will 
show what immense areas are given up to mountain 
ranges and lofty summits. In their widest part 
the Andes are 500 miles in breadth. Some mighty 




Orographic Map of S. America. 



force seems to have pushed them and the entire 
continental line eastward and massed the ranges 
into a complex system of mountains, towering iso- 
lated peaks, and parallel, transverse and interlaced 
ridges without number. In Bolivia, not far north 
of the country we are describing, there are thirty- 
two peaks above 17,000 feet high, some of them 
reaching over 21,000 feet ; and in Argentine is the 
lofty Aconcagua lifting its solitary crown to an 
elevation of 23,080 feet, rivalling the loftiest moun- 
tains of the world. And Famatina, in the Argen- 
tine Province of Rioja, rises to 20,680 feet, and the 
grand mountain Tupungato 22,015 feet high. 

Between Argentine and Chili, between latitude 
23 and 35°, the mountain passes, which are from 
10,000 to 14,000 feet high, are blocked with snow 



19 

from May to August, and they are swept by violent 
storms. 

The height of the Passes, all the way from 7 to 
37° south lat., Northern Peru to Southern Argen- 
tine, shows the determination of Nature to oppose 
transit by man, piling up in his pathway these al- 
most insurmountable obstacles. When it is con- 
sidered that this immense barrier covers a sixth 
part of the circumference of the globe, its influence 
upon the development of the Continent is apparent. 
The general condition as far as civilization is con- 
cerned and the obstacles in the way of maukind 
are forcibly and most interestingly described by 
Col. Church, comparing them with the conditions 
in North America. 

" The contrast between North and South America 
is remarkable. Nature was in her kindest mood 
when she created the former — gave it vast and fer- 
tile plains ; 1ow t and readily transit-able mountain 
ranges ; extensive systems of navigable lakes and 
rivers, the latter not too difficult to bridge ; great 
forests of the most useful timber ; immense mineral 
wealth, including an abundance of coal and iron ; 
a coast line offering numerous excellent harbours 
easily accessible from the interior, and a temperate, 
inviting climate over almost its whole area. It is 
a land where man seems to live with Nature on 
friendly terms, and where the wave of humanity, 
as it rolls westward, encounters no obstacle which 
it cannot readily overcome. 

" How opposite to all this is South America ! It 
lies mostly within the tropics. Its fertile plans, 
except those of the Argentine Republic, are diffi- 
cult of access ; it is a formidable task to scale and 
cross its mountain ranges. Its rivers, with rare 
exceptions, are of violent flow and full of obstacles 
to navigation, and its largest ones not within the 
limit of practical engineering to bridge. Its vast 
forests are hard to work and frequently impenetra- 
ble. Its mineral wealth, immense in nobler metals, 
includes but little coal and iron. Its coast has but 
few good harbors, and these are almost all mountain- 
locked. Its climate, although in many parts de- 
lightful, is uninviting over extensive regions. The 
forces of Nature are so vigorous that man can 
seldom count upon the unqualified control of them, 
and, in general, they confer generous reward only 
upon well-applied and persistent energy." 

The above is an introduction to his very import- 
ant paper read before the Royal Geographical 



20 

Society Feb. 25, 1901, entitled ' k South America, 
An Outline of its Physical Geography," a paper of 
74 printed pages. His conclusions are as follows : 

wt My analysis shows that, in general, man finds 
himself confronted by severe conditions in his 
struggle with nature in South America. Thus far, 
however, his efforts to develop and utilize its vast 
resources have made its commercial history an 
epic. The thought naturally p resents itself, that 
had North America fallen to the lot of the Latin 
race in the European occupation of the New World, 
and South America to the Anglo-Saxon, the former 
might still have maintained its supremacy ; for 
its more rapid progress may not be due so much to 
racial superiority as to advantageous geographical 
surroundings." 

Having outlined the physical conditions and 
shown their importance and influence, let us review 
very briefly the history of man among these 
extraordinary physical features of a great conti- 
nent. 

Mountains and streams and soils and nature in 
general are always of interest, but man, his his- 
tory, his ethnology and biography are of still 
greater interest to us, especially when human life 
and character have impressed themselves upon 
the country in which we are immediately in- 
terested. 

I am tempted strongly to take you on an excur- 
sion in the wide field of American ethnology and 
examine the races and tribes that were found by 
our first ancestors when they came and began the 
development of both North and South America, 
but time compels me to limit myself to an illusion 
only : for a volume would be required to take up 
the subject of the savage tribes alone of America, 
450 principal groups, and 2,000 if we separate them 
by dialects. And another volume would be needed 
to treat of the civilized Aborigines of the table 
lands of Mexico and Peru ; of the Toltecs and 
Astecs and of Quetzalcoatl and the Incas ;— the 
pontifices who ruled over a vast population cover- 
ing 40 degrees of latitude of South America from 
Northern Argentine to the Antilles. The barbar- 
ism oi' the savage and the civilization of the races 
of the table lands have nearly disappeared. You 
would have no better knowledge of that vast horde 
of wandering tribes that infested the great plains 
of the Pampas if I should mention their names. 



21 

Some few still exist; the census gives less than 
20,000 as the total of Indians still existing in Ar- 
gentine. Once numerous and brave, only about a 
dozen remain of the Paraguas — the descendants of 
the Aguas — and of the Tobas and Chinipis, who 
later occupied their country, a remnant only 
exists. 

It is unnecessary to go into the history and the 
influence of the Incas ; they have been described in 
the histories to be found in every library of the 
land. But it may not be generally known that, 
from the first arrival of the Spanish adventurers to 
the successful end of the great struggle for liberty 
in South America, there was always dissatisfaction, 
unrest and hatred of the conquering race. The 
seeds were sown in bloodshed, in the persecution by 
the Inquisition and in false commercial and govern- 
ing methods of Spain and Portugal, the mother 
countries. The difference between North and South 
America in this respect was very great. 

The symptoms of resistance against Spanish 
domination showed themselves in the dawn of the 
history of South America. Frequently the Indian 
tribes attempted to throw off the yoke of some 
more than usually severe and cruel oppressor. 
In the early days of the 18th century the revolu- 
tion of the Tupac-Amare was really a war of races 
rather than a political revolution, as it had for its 
principal purpose the extermination of the Spanish. 
In Venezuela in 1711 this same hatred showed it- 
self in the proclamation of a Mulatto as King of 
the Mestizos. Half a century later the seed sown 
by Antequera bore fruit in New Granada, when an 
army of 20,000 was raised and commanded by 
Berber. 

It is a significant and curious fact in the history 
of South America that, during the entire 18th cen- 
tury, the same causes were producing the same 
effects among people far separated from each other 
and of a character entirely distinct, scattered from 
the banks of the Paraguay River to the Colombian 
Mountains. 

Those effects may have been the precursors of 
that great revolutionary movement that created our 
great Republic and drove the Bourbons from the 
throne of France and, later, shook to the centre the 
monarchical fabric of Spain herself. 

We may, therefore, say that the struggle and the 
preparation of the ground for civil and religious 
liberty began earlier in South America than in 



22 



North America. In the British Colonies there was 
no strong sentiment against foreign rule until the 
imposition of the taxes required to furnish George 
the Third with revenue to pay off his debt of 148 
million pounds sterling. Even Washington, in 
July, 1775, when he took command of the Conti- 
nental army, declared that the idea of independ- 
ence was repugnant to him. Only later, and soon, 
when the war was suddenly upon the Colonies, did 
events hasten and make inevitable the separation 
from the Mother Country. 

It would be a subject of great interest to enter 
upon, - the three great leaders and heroes of Ameri- 
can revolutions — 

Washington — Boliva r— San M a rtin, 

a triumvirate of liberators. 

Of the two former you already know much, pos- 
sibly of the latter, but you may not know that it 
was by his patriotism and generalship that the 
whole of southern South America was freed from 
the yoke of Spain — Argentine, Chili, Peru and 
Bolivia. His biography is a romance of most ab- 
sorbing interest. 




Statue of San Martin. 



Born 1778, in Argentine, in Japeyu, his early 
education in Buenos Aires, completed in Spain ; 



23 

served with distinction and great bravery in the 
wars of Spain. Early he was imbued with the 
doctrine of liberty for his native country ; spent a 
year in Great Britain in 1811, forming associations 
and a secret league devoted to the liberation 
of Argentine. Landed in Buenos Aires in 1812 ; 
soon in command of a regiment of Grenadiers ; 
selected soldier by soldier, officer by officer, im- 
posed the most rigid discipline, forming so a rudi- 
mentary school for a generation of heroes that fol- 
lowed him, and producing nineteen generals and 
nearly all the great men of the struggle for inde- 
pendence. Placed in command of the army to reor- 
ganize it he marched to Mendoza, the nearest point 
to the Andes ; and, imbued with the idea that no 
liberty would be secure for his country until the 
Spanish armies were beaten and expelled from 
Chili, Peru and Bolivia and the whole of South 
America, he formed his plans for an invasion of 
Chili. He was the very incarnation of determined 
patriotism ; nothing, not even revolutions and dis- 
cord behind him in his own country, could deter 
him from his great work. At this moment Napo- 
leon fell, and Spain prepared an expedition of 15.000 
men destined for the Biode la Plata. In Chili and 
Peru the Royalists were victorious ; but in Argen- 
tine on the 9th day of July, 1816, at Tucuman, the 
declaration of independence was proclaimed, which, 
like our own, is sacred in the heart of every Argen- 
tine. 

In the midst of these great and momentous events, 
San Martin recruited and drilled and clothed and 
provisioned his little army destined to conquer a 
continent, to scale high mountain passes and pour 
clown upon an enemy largely outnumbering his own. 
His plans were known only to himself, and when 
asked by those high in authority what they were, 
lie refused to tell and said no one should know them ; 
and should his pillow get an idea of his plans, he 
would cast it into the fire. He ostensibly made 
roads over certain passes and, when all was ready, 
led his army over another and very different pass 
and came down upon his foe and defeated him in 
Chacabuco ; and again on the plains of Maipii, 
routing the enemy completely and assuring the in- 
dependence of Chili. Then, though anarchy was 
reigning in Argentine and his Government was 
calling upon him to return, his fixed and irresistible 
purpose of dealing the final blow to Spanish author- 
ity in Peru pushed him forward. With a fleet 



24 

hastily gotten together and commanded by Lord 
Cochrane, and with English and U. S. officers in 
command of the ships, he sailed from Valparaiso 
with his troops up the coast in December, 1818. He 
had only 4,430 men, Argentines and Chileans. The 
Viceroy of Peru had 23,000 soldiers awaiting this 




View in the Cordilleras. 

little army On July 28, 1821, as a result of his 
campaign, the independence of Pern was proclaimed 
in Lima and San Martin made dictator. In the 
meantime General Bolivar, after liberating Vene- 
zuela and Colombia, reached Quito and his forces, 
united with an Argentine division, routed the Span- 
ish army in the battle of Pichincha ; and then he 
hastened on to Guayaquil, anxious to finish by him- 
self the Peruvian Campaign. Here let me quote a 
paragraph from the history of Argentine by the 
Hon. Martin Garcia Merou, the Argentine Minister 
at Washington. 

" There he went to find San Martin, whose purity 
of character and noble unselfishness formed a marked 
contrast with the impetuous ambitions of his glori- 
ous rival. The two liberators had a conference July 
26, 1822, the details of which were kept secret ; but 
it is a well-known fact that San Martin compre- 
hended that, in order to accomplishSouth American 
independence and avoid the scandal to the world of 
a break with Bolivar, caused by the hitter's thirst for 
glory, it would be best for him to depart from a 
scene where his great presence had no place." 



25 

The story of self-abnegation and the rest of his 
life is told in a word. He resigned the dictatorship 
of Pern ; passed to Chili, to Mendoza, to Bnenos 
Aires, to Europe, where he resided four years in 
Brussels on a very modest pension. Once more, in 
1829, he returned to the La Plata, stopping at 
Montevideo, but learning that anarchy prevailed in 
his own country and deaf to the entreaties of his 
friends to come to their help, he took a steamer 
back to Europe, saying "No, General San Martin 
will never spill the blood of his fellow citizens ; he 
will draw the sword only against the enemies of 
America." And, without even seeing Buenos Aires, 
he sailed for the last time to his voluntary exile, 
dying suddenly August 19, 1850. He was free from 
those theatrical qualities which appeal to the mul- 
titude. In this great character predominated those 
moral qualities which entitle San Martin to a prom- 
inent place in South American history, Inflexible 
in the discharge of duty, a rigid disciplinarian, 
everything was subordinated to the high mission to 
which he had devoted himself, and he never sacri- 
ficed his cause to ambitious or personal vain glory. 
He was the incarnation of an idea. His modesty, 
his pure and elevated character, the simplicity of 
his life and the nobility of his principles give him 
rightfully a position by the side of the great heroes 
of history. 



Plaza Victoria and Statue of Belgrano. 

In the vicissitudes of the epoch under considera- 
tion, when European wars and the disasters of 
nations reflected themselves directly and indirectly 



26 

upon the people of the River Plate and led slowly 
to the formation of the Republics of Uruguay, 
Argentine and Paraguay, many notable and great 
men as well as despots and bloody tyrants and 
political demagogues appeared upon the scene and 
the pages ot history. ~No name more illustrious, 
contemporaneous with San Martin, is seen in the 
records of that time, more brilliant and more im- 
portant in results, than that of General Belgrano. 
His generalship, diplomacy, statemanship and ex- 
alted patriotism give him a most distinguished 
position in the annals of independence ; as General 
Mitre has well said in the opening sentence of his 
History of Belgrano : "This book is at the same 
time the biography of a man and the history of an 
epoch. " His statue is before us as we stand in the 
archway of the National Government Building and 
look out upon the beautiful Plaza Victoria. General 
Belgrano was really the author of the national flag. 
The white and the blue are the colors of the Patric- 
ios, the regiment of native Americans at the time 
of the overthrow of the Spanish Viceroy, on the 
25th of May, lolO. 

Coming to later times, new and illustrious names 
appear, — men who were true patriots, who would 
not stoop to fraud or unbecoming political act, 
and who, amidst the errors of their time and 
the temptations to do evil, came out pure as gold 
tried in the lire. One of these men is the author of 
the history of Belgrano, — General Mitre, — still 
living, — the general who led the forces of Buenos 
Aires in the last struggle for a United 
Republic, and who may be called the Father of his 
country — for under his wise governorship, his 
skilful generalship and wisdom as President, Sena- 
tor and a public man always before the j)eople, the 
country has been strong, united, prosperous and 
peaceful. 

The sincerity of his motives, the purity of his 
life, public and private, his self-abnegation, his 
rigid honesty, his lofty ideas of public office, ad- 
ministering it always as a public trust, his modest 
and simple life, all explains why the entire nation 
recently honored his 80th birthday, and why the 
statesmen of the Republic sit at his feet to learn, 
and to follow his wise counsel. 

I have refrained from developing the 
political history of the Republic, or giving 
its earlier history— the discovery of the River 
Plate— by de Solis, in 1515, giving the name of 



27 

his second officer, Martin Gfarcia, to the now well- 
known island at the head of the Estuary, or the 
discovery in 1526 of the Parana River, by Sebas- 
tian Cabot, and all the subsequent and checkered 
history of the Spanish Portugese rule in the River 
Plate countries. That they have passed through 
many trying periods, when the patriotism of the 
leaders has been severely tested, goes without say- 
ing. The heterogeneous elements, the ambitions 
of designing men, the lack of integrity in the early 
days of independence and the opportunities which 
selfish men had easily in their hands to enrich and 
raise themselves in political station, gave varied 
and not always envious political changes to decades 
of Argentine history, not necessary to inflict upon 
you now. Suffice it to say that the country has 
passed safely through those terrible ordeals. The 
principles of the 9th of July, 1816, in the Procla- 
mation of Independence, and those laid down May 
25, 1853, in the Constitution of the United Prov- 
inces, form the basis of the Republic— 14 Provinces 
(States) and 10 Gobernaciones (Territories), — prin- 
ciples which all hold sacred and which are almost 
exactly similar to our own. 

The world, and especially its republics, owe more 
to Buenos Aires than is generally known or recog- 
nized. The brief but eloquent summary of this 
period of its history by General Mitre shows how 
great has been its influence in the development of 
American national life. 

'* On the same day when the Chieftain Ramirez 
was routed and slain, and that Varrera fled, seek- 
ing the sepulchre of his brethren, and the 
farmers of Salta rose en masse to obey the order of 
the dying Gtiemes, General San Martin, on the tenth 
of July, 1821, was triumphantly entering Lima ; 
and Bolivar, the conqueror of the north of Ecua- 
dor, was going at the head of the armies of Colom- 
bia, to meet the Argentine liberator in order to 
seal the independence of the New World, already 
irrevocably assured by the occupation of Lower 
Peru, liberated by San Martin. 

*' Here ends the history of the independence of 
the Argentine Republic. If she was the precursor 
in chronological order, she was also the first to give 
the signal for the great insurrection, which eman- 
cipated the Spanish-American Colonies from the 
Mother Country. It conquered its independence 
by its own efforts and without foreign help; it 
fought eleven consecutive years; it expelled its 



28 

enemies from its territory, taking possession of 
their fortified places and conquering their squad- 
rons upon the seas; it hurled back triumphantly 
upon the land the nine Royalist invasions which 
endeavored to subjugate it. Its revolution is the 
only one which was not overcome, while all the 
others were, from Chili to Mexico. 

" Devoured by anarchy, it struggled with it arm 
to arm, and at the same time carried its liberating 
arms to Paraguay, to the Banda-Oriental, to Peru, 
upper and low r er, and its banners arrived victorious 
at the boundaries of Ecuador in the struggle for 
the independence of Colombia. 

"Simultaneously its internal revolution took 
form, and, upon concluding its second evolution 
within its own organic elements, the United Prov 
inces of the Rio de la Plata, now in peace and reor- 
ganized according to the plan of an embryonic feder- 
ation, which was to be the law of the Constitution 
in the future, had sketched out their political map, 
tracing upon it with the sword of independence the 
inviolable line of its frontiers. 

' l It only remained for Jujuy, emancipated from 
Salta, to resume its federal autonomy, and to rise 
above the horizon the fourteenth star of this new 
National constellation. The Spanish power con- 
quered, disorder dominated, and its organic ele- 
ments reorganized and reconstituted, the Argentine 
Republic, which, even in the midst of anarchy, had 
contributed so much to secure its own independ- 
ence and that of other South American nations, was 
about to initiate a new propaganda of principles, 
which, like its armies, should spread over the 
entire South America. 

"Buenos Aires was the initiator and the herald 
of this new Pacific development. This province 
departed from its primitive plan of organization 
and gave up the impossible task of uniting the 
nation politically by means of revolutionary con- 
gresses and governments of irresponsible dictators, 
which had shown themselves impotent to constitute 
and to unify the country. Concentrating itself 
within its own organic forces, it put in practice the 
idea of creating the type of a federal state arranged 
on a constitutional plan, which should serve as a 
model to other provinces in the future. This 
initiation took place under the administration of 
General Martin Rodriguez. 

"General Rodriguez called to his council, in order 
to realize the work of reorganization, first, Bernardi- 



29. 

no Rivadavia and then Manuel Jose Garcia. These 
two statesmen carried it to a successful conclusion, 
with the co-operation of the same men who had 
fomented and sustained the revolution. Assuring 
independence and the re-establishment of order, 
they inaugurated the republican system in Buenos 
Aires, breaking forever with colonial traditions ; 
and they laid the foundations of a real republican 
government which responded truly to liberty and 
progress. A limited legislative power was created, 
renewable on the base of universal and direct 
suffrage. The powers of the Executive were deter- 
mined b}^ its duration and making it responsible. 
Institutions of credit were established, and im- 
migration and popular education were promoted. 
The income and the estimate of expenses were for 
the first time organized. The sciences and the arts 
were cultivated, absolute amnesty proclaimed and 
public opinion was given participation in the Gov- 
ernment, and an extensive reform was carried out 
in all political and social institutions. In this 
manner was created the nucleus of Argentine, 
creating the power of a republican federal State 
and making possible its organization in the fu- 
ture." 

Some eloquent words spoken by General Mitre at 
the unveiling of the statue of Belgrano, in the 
Plaza Victoria in 1873 will illustrate the influ- 
ence of a great patriot upon his country, and will 
reveal the character of a patriotic people, who were 
taught and led by such men as General Belgrano. 

"The author of this book (History of Belgrano) 
in pronouncing the judgment of posterity before 
the monument, said with a legitimate pride, and 
with republican humility, that it could be assured 
that never had a glory more pure or more modest 
been modelled in the bronze of immortality. 

" The war, he added, was a simple accident in 
the laborious career of the precursor of our inde- 
pendence and the founder of our first public 
schools, which, in their turn, taught lessons from 
the revolution and left it as a legacy to posterity. 
He accepted the strife like a task placed upon a 
laborer, and he accomplished it with fortitude, 
with abnegation and with humility, as well in 
victory as in defeat, without withdrawing from any 
sacrifices or asking for himself the crown of the 
conqueror. 



'SO 

%t General Belgrano is one of those historical fig- 
ures, who, either with a flag or a sword, can also be 
represented with the pen of the writer, or with the 
book of law in hand, or blessing with both the 
head of the child reading its first primer ; because 
he was a man of action and a man of thought, and 
because while he fought for his beliefs, he scattered 
along the furrow of life fructifying seeds of in- 
struction and virtue. 

" He was not a man of the genius of San Martin, 
nor a statistician of the breadth of Bieytes, nor a 
jurisconsult of the knowledge of Castro, nor an 
orator of the consequence of Castelli, nor a writer 
of the temper of Monteaguedo, nor a thinker of the 
depth of Moreno, nor a politician of the character 
of Bivadavia, all his contemporaries, his com- 
panions, his friends of the epoch of the revolution ; 
but he had all of their qualities in the midst of a 
memorable epoch, with a soul grand and pure and 
a character elevated and simple ; and for these 
reasons he is one of our great men of the past, and 
of the present, as he will be of all future genera- 
tions. 

" His greatness, principally civic and moral, did 
not result from a superiority of genius over the 
common level, nor is it exclusively united to the 
grand political and military cause in which he was 
a modest actor. 

" It consists in the harmonious union of his high 
moral qualities, which did not pretend to exalt 
themselves before public rights ; in the equilib- 
rium of soul, which did not leave itself to be de- 
graded by pride, nor to be a vassal to egotism ; in 
the authority with which he commanded ; in the 
humility with which he obeyed ; in all of which 
he was the representative of the generous aspira- 
tions of all times, and which aspirations he served 
in the name and interest of all, thus extending his 
life to posterity, in which he was a humble and 
persevering apostle, combatant and laborer ; and 
he moistened with his sweat the field of human 
labor, in battles, in the councils of government and 
in the pages of literature, and even on the rustic 
bench of the primary school, dying in obscurity 
and poverty. 

" He is an ideal type of the modest hero of de- 
mocracy, which does not shine forth as a meteor 
but brilliant as a star, unquenchable in the horizon 
of the country, as shine the names of Washington, 
William Tell, William of Orange, Hampden and 



31 

Lincoln, who were not great geniuses, and who in 
the name and in representation of the good and 
memorable of all times and all countries, have 
been acclaimed great with the applause of human 
conscience and of universal morality." 

The orator, in thus formulating the history and 
judgment in the presence of the Statue, saluted 
it saying : ' General Belgrano, in the name of all 
present who honor thee at this time, from the La 
Plata to the Andes, in the name of future genera- 
tions which bow themselves with respect and sym- 
pathy before thy noble image, I, thine humble 
historian and one of thy grateful sons, salute thee, 
great and Father of our Country, the precursor of 
our independence, the genius of labor and of all 
moral and civic virtues, conqueror of Tucuman, 
Salta and Piedras, conquered at Vilcapugio and 
Ayohuma, you will live in the memory and in the 
heart of men as long as the Argentine flag shall 
wave in the breeze, and while the name of our 
country pronounced by millions of free citizens, 
shall make thy bronze vibrate with their acclama- 
tions'. Of him it can be said, as of Hampden, 'he 
was great without pretending it ; he found glory 
without seeking it and in the pathway of duty.' " 

I stated in my remarks at Diisseldorf that the 
country was ambitious and determined to fulfil its 
destiny among the nations of the earth. I cannot 
close the political subject of my lecture without 
confirming this statement by the words found at 
the close of Mr. Merou's history of Argentine, 
which he brings down to 1870. 

"The Argentine Republic came out of this cam- 
paign (1870, with the dictator and tyrant of Para- 
guay) strengthened and united. The sentiment of 
Nationality, christalized by common sacrifices, was 
from that time forth an indestructible fact and a 
promise of days of prosperity and greatness, of a 
country united, free and powerful. We can con- 
template the problems of the future with tran- 
quility, consecrating ourselves with all of our in 
telligence and forces to build up with a broad and 
generous spirit and a disinterested love for truth 
and justice (following the traditions received from 
our forefathers and realizing their noble ideals), 
one of the greatest, most prosperous and most il- 
lustrious Nations of the Earth." 

The TJ. S. Government at a critical period in the 
history of South America (1818) presented fearlessly 
and firmly its pronounced views, and prevented a 



32 

coalition of European powers for the purpose of 
compelling the American colonies of Spain to re- 
turn, and thus re-establish Spanish domination in 
South and Central America and Mexico. Much to 
the surprise of the British Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, our Minister, Mr Rush, boldly combatted 
the proposition by the statement that the decided 
views of his Government were, that the American 
Colonies of Spain should be completely emanci- 
pated from the mother country, and that in its 
opinion there could be no other outcome of the 
struggle which Bolivar and San Martin w r ere en- 
gaged in on the Andean plains. 

As a concession to the American Minister, Lord 
Castleraugh, the British Premier stated that Buenos 
Aires (Argentine) among all the insurrectionary 
colonies had given the best proof of its capacity 
to exist as an independent nation, and its com- 
merce had the greatest importance at the time, and 
the best promise for the future. Our Minister in 
Paris, Mr. Gallatin, aided by Lafayette, in 1819 used 
his influence for the acknowledgment of the inde- 
pendence of the American Colonies of Spain. Our 
Government in 1818 was the first power of the world 
to recognize Argentine as a Nation, by granting an 
" exequatur" to a Consul General appointed by 
that Government. This same country having 
proven by its works its right to exist, now 
stretches out the hand to its benefactor of nearly 
a century ago, and asks the interchange of pro- 
ducts and its co-operation in its efforts to fulfill its 
high destiny among the nations. 

It is pertinent here to remark that the principle 
enunciated in 1818, five years before the message 
of President Monroe, proclaiming the "Monroe 
Doctrine " with such quiet but firm determin- 
ation, viz.: that America is and shall be the 
undisturbed home of Americans^ has persisted 
until the present day, and if attempts have been 
made at any time to impair the sovereignty of 
any American nation, there has always been a 
Grant or a Cleveland to frustrate them. President 
Roosevelt has recently clearly defined this much 
misunderstood principle, or so-called " Monroe 
Doctrine," when he said : "The nations now ex- 
isting on the Western Continent must be left to 
work out their destinies among themselves, " and 
"America, North and South, is no longer to be 
regarded as the colonizing ground of any European 
power." Thus, it has happened that while the 



33 

Dark Continent has been partitioned among these 
powers, no hand as yet has been laid upon any part 
of America. 

A correct interpretation of this " Doctrine " is 
absolutely essential to a complete understanding 
and cordial accord between us and the other coun- 
tries of North and South America. 

A.n incorrect knowledge of it, particularly 
among the South American people, has engendered 
a popular antagonism to it as being unworthy of 
themselves to accept without their consent the 
suzerainty, or tutelage, of the United States, espec- 
ially as their social and commercial affiliations are 
with European countries from whom our Govern- 
ment has politically protected these republics for 
nearly a century. 

Truth and fairness required the statement here 
that Lord Castlereaugh in 1818 did not express the 
real view of the British people and that in 1823, 
the very year of President Monroe's Message — 
Canning who was then Foreign Minister quietly 
opposed the k ' Holy Alliance," which was headed 
by Alexander of Russia, supported by France and 
Germany, and which had for its object the Coer- 
cion of the Spanish American Republics. 

Canning desired their independence and sug- 
gested to President Monroe that the prononcement 
would come better from him than from Great 
Britain, viz : " There is to be no interference by 
European potentates in the domestic affairs of the 
Western HemisiDhere" and Canning promised to 
suprjort President Monroe — who subsequently 
wrote to our Minister in Paris quoting Canning's 
despatch and saying he should follow his advice, 
but adding " but what will happen if Canning is 
not as good as his word." 

All of which is a very interesting side light upon 
the origin of the ' c Monroe Doctrine ' ' . 

Let us now take a bird's-eye view of the present 
Argentine, a country one-third the size of the 
United States; a climate salubrious and comfortable; 
of immense plains formed by nature, as I have al- 
ready shown, for the use of man — plains where 
the railroads find no natural obstacles worth men- 
tioning in the way of their good alignment and 
construction ; where we have, I think, the longest 
railroad tangent in the world (186 miles), between 
Junin and La Cautiva, on the Pacific Railroad; 
plains covered with the cattle of the great estancias, 



34 

thousands of them of the best breeds in one estan- 
cia, and sheep by the millions, and great fields of 
wheat, corn and linseed, the principal agricultural 
products of the country. An "estancia" might be 
called a '* ranch " on the great plains of our West- 
ern States. Their size varies from about three 
thousand acres to seven hundred thousand acres ; 
probably twenty-five thousand acres might be con- 
sidered an average size. 

As might be expected, the business of cattle 
raising requires expert men similar to our cow- 
boys ; they are called "gauchos." They are fear- 
less riders and masters of their trade. The horses 
they ride are generally rather undersized, but wiry 
and of great endurance. They are much like the 
best class of Mexican horses. 

As the cattle roam over great ranges, which are 
unfenced, it is necessary to brand them, as we also 
do on our great plains. 

The homes of the gauchos on the estancias are 
not elegant, to say the least, but in the compara- 
tively mild climate of Argentine they do not need 
as much protection from the weather as in many of 
our cattle districts of the far West. They are a 
contented people, and while they do not have the 
facilities for entertainment which a city popula- 
tion has, they nevertheless have their own fun on 
feast days and whenever their arduous and roaming 
life will permit. 

As might be expected of a country stretching 
through so many degrees of latitude and rising 
along the circles of longitude from the level of the 
sea to the highest Andes, there is a great variety of 
climate and generally an abundant rainfall. Buenos 
Aires is on the same parallel south of the Equator 
as Wilmington, North Carolina, is north of it. 
Snow is almost unknown, and scarcely ever is ice 
or frost seen. The climate in the summer is tem- 
pered with the great body of water of the River 
Plate. 

The rainfall of Buenos Aires averages 35£ inches 
per annum, about equal to that of the Northern 
States of the United States. At Asuncion, Para- 
guay, it is 53 inches, about equal to that of New 
Orleans. The temperature is remarkably uniform. 
The mean temperature in June and July, 1899, the 
coldest months, was 54° (F.), and in January and 
February, the hottest, 76° ; the annual mean being 
62°. In 20 years the mean was 63° ; summer, 77°; 
autumn, 65°; winter, 54°, and spring, 63°; mean of 



35 

January, the warmest month, 79°; of July, the 
coldest, 52°. The extreme, or extraordinary, limits 
were 107°, and very rare 104°, frequently 95° and 
in winter 23°, which occurred but three or four 
times. In February, 1900, the heat rose to 108°, 
but the period of intense heat was only eight days. 
Such conditions are extremely rare. 

The agricultural, industrial and commercial 
features are those of greatest interest, and yet, to 
give you an adequate idea of them, I must give 
you figures, and they are not always interesting ; 
but an intelligent audience prefers them to any 
u glittering generalities" desirous of knowing 
what Argentine really is and has. 

The population of the whole country is now 
about 5,000,000 ; its present rate of growth per de- 
cade is about JfO per cent. The United States is 
W per cent., Germany 16 per cent. 

The Province, or State, of Buenos Aires is as 
large as Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Connecticut 
and Massachusetts combined, or two and one-half 
times as large as New York State, 120,000 square 
miles, and mostly plains, with 750 miles of coast 
line. It has 1,200,000 inhabitants, 10,000,000 head 
of cattle, 80,000,000 sheep and 2,200,000 horses. In 
1901 it raised 762,000 tons of wheat and 1,360,271 
tons of corn, a respectable showing ; and the value 
of agricultural and pastoral products was $740, 000,- 
000. Tue wheat area of the Republic, mostly in 
four provinces, Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Cordoba 
and Entre Rios, is about 8,500,000 acres. 80,000,- 
000 to 100,000,000 bushels of wheat are exported. 
The total area under cultivation in the Republic in 
1901 was 17,500,0.00 acres. The increase over 1891 
was 136 per cent. The crops were : wheat, 1,964,- 
000 tons; linseed, 490,000 tons; corn, 2,134,000 
tons. The total of arable land is 253 million acres, 
of which 240 million do not need irrigation. 

In the whole Republic there are over 30,000,000 
head of cattle. The annual increase is 25 per cent. 
5,600,000 horses and 120,000,000 sheep; (in the U. S. 
there are 62,000,000.) The annual increase in 
Argentine is 33 per cent. 3,000,000 carcasses were 
sent to Europe in 1901. 

One of the important industries of the country 
is the " Saladeros," wdiich from its name signifies 
salted or jerked beef and extract of beef, etc. 
Nearly $40,000,000 are invested in them. Brazil is 
the principal market. Over 1,000,000 head of cattle 
were killed for the Saladeros in 1900. The meat- 



36 

freezing factories exported 100,000 tons of meat in 
1901. An important factor in the Argentine meat 
trade, and it may be said in the meat trade of the 
world, is the successful result of continued efforts 
to send chilled meat to Great Britain. The River 
Plate Fresh Meat Company started this trade in 
1901, exporting in that year 29,919 quarters of beef ; 
and from Jan. 1st to May 31, 1902, 5 months, it ex- 
ported 38,148 quarters. 

Since that date the imports into Great Britain 
have rapidly increased, and recent dispatches from 
London relate how this factor in the London meat 
market is alarming the Beef Trust of the United 
States and the Australian shippers. Argentine is 
placing its chilled meat in London at a consider- 
ably lower price, and is competing successfully 
with meat from the United States. 




Flock of Sheep. 

As might be expected, the Wool industry is very 
important, about one-half million bales shipped to 
Europe being the export product in the year 1901- 
1902,-31,000 to U. S. and 28,000 to Great Britain. 

Argentine is a protectionist country, and its re- 
sources for conducting the Government are largely 
raised from the Custom dues. In 1899 the imports 
free of duty amounted to $14,769,933 (gold), and 
those subject to duty $102,080,738 (gold). The ex- 
ports were $184,917,531 (gold). The United States 
imports three hundred millions per annum of sugar, 
hides, linseed, jute, hemp, wood and fruit, and 
thirty-six millions of wool and woolen articles. 
All of these are produced by Argentine, yet only 



37 

six million of the 336 millions come from Argentine,. 
or two per cent. 

The United States exports, including cereals, 
meat and live stock, about 920 millions, and 
only 10 millions of this go to Argentine, or about 
one per cent ; while Argentine's purchases of the 
same articles in England were 39 millions, and 60' 
millions from other countries. 

Reciprocal trade would open the United States 
to Argentine wool and treble the production in a 
few years. There should be direct lines to that 
country from the United States, and the time should 
be reduced from about 27 days to 15 or 18 days. 
We should ship to Argentine our manufactures, 
our coal, pine wood, petroleum, etc., and we should 
receive from Argentine its wool, hides, grease, dried 
fruits, hard wood for tanning and dyeing, etc. 
Now, for want of return freights, steamers load at 
U. S. ports for Buenos Aires, and return via Liver- 
pool to New York, frequently via South Africa. 

In reference to wool, I have already stated that 
in the entire United States there are only about 
62 million sheep, while there are 120 million 
in Argentine. It is a well known fact that the 
ranges in the far West of the United States, 
which are absolutely necessary for sheep-rais- 
ing, are rapidly being reduced by the extension 
of our population westward, and the cutting up of 
great areas into smaller farms. Not only do the 
smaller farmers as they go West wage constant war 
with the sheep herders, but the cattle raisers do 
the same ; so that the time is sure to come very 
soon when we will need the wool of Argentine. 
What this country should do with a great agricul- 
tural country like Argentine, capable of immense 
productions, is to receive its raw materials, and ship 
to it our manufactured goods. 

It is proper in closing this part of the subject, to 
quote a short paragraph which appears in the Ar- 
gentine Year Book, recently published, from the 
pen of Mr. Ronaldo Tidblom, Chief of the National 
Dept. of Agriculture and Live-Stock Industry. In 
closing up a long and very important article in that 
Y'ear Book on the agriculture of Argentine, he 
makes the following statement : 

" Nature has undoubtedly endowed Argentina 
with advantages for agricultural and pastoral farm- 
ing not to be found in any other country of the 
world, and it is not too bold a forecast to say that 
if the country continues to improve her natural 



38 

gifts in the same degree in which they have been 
cared for and improved up to the present time, the 
day will come when the Argentine farmers will have 
absolute control of the world's food markets." 

The money of the country is on a paper basis, 
and the minimum value of a dollar was fixed in 
1899 at 44 cents gold, or 127 per cent, premium. 
The market value of a gold dollar expressed in 
paper money varies now between $2.27 and $2.34, 
and the gold dollar of the United States is at a 4 
per cent, premium over that of Argentine. 

Railways have had an extensive development. 
In 1867 there were 855 miles; in 1880 there were 
1563; in 1890, 5,862; in 1900, 10,601, of which 
1,243 belong to the Government and 9,358 to foreign 
companies. In length of line Argentine stands 
ninth on the list of countries, but as compared with 
the United States the mileage is about 5 per cent. 
The paid-up capital is $550,000,000 (gold). The 
total receipts in 1900 were $40,000,000 (gold). Com- 
paring the railroads of Argentine with those of the 
rest of the world, we find that in Argentine the 
length of line per one thousand inhabitants is 3.46 
kilometers, while it is 4.86 in the United States, 
0.93 in Germany and 1.70 in France. 

The great Southern, the Western and some other 
lines are still making extensions, and the Southern 
has crossed the JSTeuqnen River and is looking for 
a pass to cross the Andes. 

There are three gauges — 5 feet, which is really 
the standard, 4 feet 8J inches, and a narrow gauge, 
usually about B'3" (1 meter). 

The total length of telegraph lines is 28,000 miles, 
of which 12,000 belong to the Government. Com- 
pared with the United States, the Western Union 
alone has 192,705 miles of poles and cable. 

One of the most interesting railroad lines now in 
construction is the Transandine, which, upon leav- 
ing Mendoza, follows the Mendoza River to its 
source and climbs to the summit of the Pass of the 
Andes, 3,900 meters (13,000 feet) above sea level. 
The Abt system of adhesion up to 2^ per cent., and 
then Rack to six per cent, is employed. 

Some very interesting views can be had of the 
approach from the Argentine side. Lofty moun- 
tains, rugged slopes, rushing rivers and the Puente 
del Inca (the Incas' bridge), a natural bridge 
formed evidently by the river breaking through a 
great deposit of cemented material, caused- by an 



39 



avalanche. The railroad is not completed, and 
some of the most difficult work is yet to be done . 




First Tunnel out of Mendoza. 



Speaking generally of the Railroads, they are 
well constructed, though good ballast on the great 
plains is lacking. The cars are like American cars, 
but the first-class day coaches are much more 
luxurious than ours. All the long distance trains 
have comfortable sleepers ; a buffet and dining car 
goes with all through trains. 

In regard to the industries of the country, while 
the main products are agricultural and the export 
as well, important industries are slowly develop- 
ing. While sugar is an agricultural product, the 
40 sugar mills may be classed among the industries. 
In 1870 Argentine imported 22,000 tons, but in 
1899 exported 58,000 tons. There are $52,000,000 
invested. 

There are over 60 breweries in the country. 
The annual product is about 440,000 gallons. 

There are 182 distilleries ; the alcohol is made 
principally from corn. The annual product is about 
3,000,000 gallons. 

Milling is a very important industry. The first 
flour mill was built in 1850 in the City of Cordova ; 
the first steam flour mill was built in Buenos 
Aires in 1845. In 1895, by the census of that year, 
there were 659 mills,— 234 worked by steam, and 



40 

303 by waber ; the total amount of flour made was 
383,147 tons. The country now exports about 
80,000 tons, all in bags and mostly to Brazil, valued 
at about $3,000,000 (gold). At present the Brazilian 
market is giving a preference to United States 
flour because it arrives in barrels, which must lead 
to the same method in Argentine, although the 
wood suitable for barrel staves is very limited . 

The Wine industry is one of the most important. 
The soil suitable for grapes covers an immense area, 
extending from the Northern to the Southern 
Provinces along the slopes of the mountains. 
Mendoza and San Juan, west of Buenos Aires, are, 
however, the best adapted to vine-growing. In 
1900 there were 89,000 acres in vines valued at 
about $10,000,000 (gold). The transportation of 
the wine bv rail in 1901, in Mendoza alone, 
amounted to 160,000 tons, and the stock of wine in 
the wine establishments (bodegas) was 33,000,000 
litres (871,000 gallons). 

The Dairy industry a few years ago had prac- 
tically no existence, and nothing at all was done 
with the milk of the millions of cows in the 
country, Now, large dairies are springing up in 
all the pastoral parts of the country ; 
the neatest and most tempting places to enter in 
the City of Buenos Aires, are the white-painted, 
scrupulously clean places for drinking milk, 
scattered all over the city, the milk being sent 
in from the great "estancias." These dairies are 
being built in the most approved style, and they 
prepare pasteurized, maternized, sterilized and all 
other kinds of milk preparations. The exports of 
butter alone in 1901 were 3,322,391 lbs. In the year 
1895 it was only 880,000 lbs. 

Iron and Steel industries are important, although 
there is practically no ore or coal in the country. 
In 1895 there were 154 iron foundries and 156 re- 
pair shops, with a capital of $15,000,000. Every 
class of machinery is now manufactured, even to 
small engines and boilers. 

Matches : the tax alone in 1899 amounted to 
2,000,000 dollars. 

Tobacco : the excise tax on which and its pro- 
ducts in 1901 amounted to $4,200,000 (gold). 

Four million dollars (gold) are invested in textile 
manufactures employing 6,200 persons ; canvas 
factories one million (gold), employing 2,000 per- 
sons and making 5,000,000 yards, and ten million 
dollars in hat factories employing 700 hands. 



41 



As to mining, there are valuable copper mines 
containing gold and silver, also rich veins of gold 
with recent discoveries of iron ore, but these var- 
ious products have not been developed to any great 
extent, due to remoteness from railroads and the 
roughness of the country, making the exportation 
very costly. These minerals include gold, borax, 
copper, marble, silver ore, lead ore, etc. 

After this cursory and possibly uninteresting 
statement of statistics, it is a relief to turn to the 
beautiful and a really great City of the World — 
Buenos Aires — and give you a brief outline of its 
most important characteristics. First, a little his- 
tory and more dry figures to give an adequate idea 
of its size and general features. 

Its early history is full of trouble. Founded in 
1535, destroyed and rebuilt ; and then from 1 650, 




6.1UQAQ 

■ UEMOB-JUHES 

UiSTltlTII KKIIKK.a 




City of Buenos Aires, 



when there were 400 houses, it grew slowly under 
the old Spanish regime, and later, under dictators 
and bad rulers, it slowly advanced in spite of an 
unstable Government. In 1852, when the noted 
Rosas was turned out, it had 76,000 inhabitants. 
Chicago was just then passing through the hard 
trials of a little Western town, and had not more 
than 20,000 people. In 1864 Buenos Aires had 
140,000 inhabitants, and Chicago about the same; 



42 

in 1869, 178,000. But Chicago had already started 
on its phenomenal growth and reached over 
300,000. In 1887 Buenos Aires had 400,000, and 
Chicago 1,000,000. 

In October, 1902, Buenos Aires had 864,513, and 
it is growing at the rate of about 40 per cent, per 
decade. It is destined to reach the million mark 
by the year 1906. It is now the largest City in 
the World, South of Philadelphia, if we except 
Chinese Cities. 

Comparing its present rate of growth per decade 
with some other cities, we find the following : 
Greater London, 20 per cent. ; New York, 37 per 
cent.; Chicago, 54 per cent.; Phila., 23 percent.; 
Greater Berlin, 19 per cent. ; Buenos Aires, 40 per 
cent. 

The City is on the right bank of the River Plate, 
a sloping bank 50 or 60 feet above the level of water, 
rising up to considerably greater elevations in the 
centre of the city. It is about 120 miles from the 
sea at Montevideo. Its area is one of the greatest 
in the World, 44,830 acres ; Paris has only 19,280, 
Berlin, 15,625, Hamburg, 15,681, and Vienna 13,690. 
It would be a good day's journey to go around the 
City, as its perimeter measures 39 miles. 




Palacio del Congresso. 



As far as the natural conditions permit, the 
streets are laid out in the form of a chessboard, 
and are generally about 360 feet apart from centre 
to? centre. In the central part of the City the 



43 



streets are narrow ; it is difficult for three carriages 
to pass. There are, however, a feAv 33 feet wide, 
and one or two avenues about a hundred feet. 
The finest, and said to be the best-lighted street 
in the World, is the Avenida de Mayo, which is in 
the centre of the City as to the numbering of the 
houses North and South. It has a fine asphalt 
pavement and double electric lights in the centre. 
It was cut through the blocks a few years ago from 
the Casa de Gfobierno (Government House), near 
the port, to the 13th street, somewdiat less than a 
mile. At the other end there is being built a 
beautiful Capitol building that will cost about 
5,000,000 dollars (gold). 




Plaza Libert ad. 



There are 72 parks and small areas outside the 
main streets, with a combined area of about 1,400 
acres. These parks are more tastefully laid out 
and more neatly kept than can be found in any 
other country in the world, Paris excepted. In 
fact, in many respects the City, in its streets, 
lights, parks and structures, resembles Paris, ex- 
cept that there are more one story residences than 
in Paris. The prevailing style is Spanish, with a 
patio (a kind of open area) and the rooms all facing 
it, and in this patio a garden and fountain, when 
the proprietor is able to have it ; if not, pots of 
flowers very much like the ordinary city house in 
Mexico. The style of the houses of the wealthy 
may be seen on Avenida Alvear. 



44 

The pavements are wood (nearly all hard, suit- 
able wood of the country), asphalt, granite blocks, 
macadam and rubble. No city has better pave- 
ments in the central part. In the outskirts, how- 
ever, much of the pavement is very bad and un- 
even, merely rubble, but immense sums are being- 
expended in substituting rubble for granite blocks 
and asphalt. 




Avenida Alvear. 

There is no city anywhere with moiv lines of 
street cars ; in fact, with the exception of two 
streets, there is a line in every one of the principal 
thoroughfares. And leading out to the pleasant 
suburban towns, Belgrano, Palermo and Flores- 
there are electric lines similar to those in American 
cities, using the overhead trolley. In fact, all the 
equipment from rails to trolley comes from the 
United States. Very extensive changes are being 
made in all parts of the City, substituting horse- 
cars for electric. There are now 275 miles of street 
car lines, which carried, in 1900, 116,447,982 pas- 
sengers. 

There is a pioject and a national concession for a 
system of underground electric tram lines, connect- 
ing the three main railway stations with the Plaza 
Victoria and, in one direction, extending by a sur- 
face line far out in the country. If underground 



45 



lines pay in any city in the world, they will in 
Bnenos Aires, for the conditions are especially 
adapted to their easy construction, the material 
being suitable for tunneling, and a great mass of 
people crowded into the c; Centre" with its narrow 
streets, where the present surface movement is 
often extremely congested. A United States 
citizen has the concession. 

In 1868 there was a terrible epidemic of yellow 
fever due, in a large part, to unsanitary condi- 
tions, but immediately afterward the city began a 
very extensive system of water and drainage works 
costing 33 millions of dollars (gold), discharging 
the sewerage 15 miles distant, and the storm waters 
by great intercepting sewers, now being completed, 
into the river in front of the city. The City 
Water-works take their water above the city, 
where it is never contaminated. These works were 
designed by Messrs. Eateman and Parsons, Engi- 
neers, of London, and the main construction was 
carried out under their supervision. 




Water Works Building. 



The water of the River Plate is good but 
muddy, and it is clarified in settling basins before 
being delivered to the distributing reservoir built 
on one of the highest points of the city. This dis- 
tributing reservoir is a work of art, covered with 
glazed tiles over pressed brick. These works all 



46 



together have made Buenes Aires one of the 
healthiest cities in the World, as the death rate 
proves. 

Ten years ago, upon the completion of the main 
works, the mortality per 1,000 was 30 ; now it is 
16 1/2. This compares very favorably with other 
large cities. London lias 19.2, Glasgow 21.6, Liv- 
erpool 26.3, Manchester 24.1, Dublin, 30.4, Paris 
20.1, St. Petersburgh 24.7, Vienna 20.7, Madrid 
30.1, Rome 17.6, Venice 22.8, New York 19.7, 
Philadelphia 17.7, Brussels 17.9. Boston 19.0 and 
New Orleans (white) 17.9. 

The Government is soon to extend the works at a 
cost of 5 millions (gold). 

The climate, taking the whole year round, is very 
equable and very agreeable. The parks are always 
green ; vines and palms and a species of banana 
plants are seen everywhere, and flowers all the 
year in the open. It has a semi-tropical country 
in the North and in Paraguay from which to pro- 
cure the plants, where the Victoria Pegia and 
other beautiful plants grow wild. 

In reference to education, the primary education 
is compulsory from the age of nine to fourteen ; 




Cathedral. 



secondary education from fourteen to nineteen is 
optional, as also the university, or higher education, 
from nineteen to twenty-five or twenty-six. No 
man can enter into any of the professions, includ 



47 

ing engineering, and take a prominent position in 
the Government without being a graduate of the 
National University, and having taken the course 
outlined in the above division of ages. 

In 1900 there were 450 thousand pupils in the 
public schools, which are free to all, and free to 
people of all religions. Although the Catholic re- 
ligion is the national religion, neither it nor any 
other religion is allowed to be taught in the 
schools. 

In the National University there are four facul- 
ties—law, and social science, medicine, exact physi- 
cal and natural science, and philosophy and letters. 
In 1901 there were 3,562 students in the University. 

In reference to religion, everywhere in Argentine 
under the Constitution all may worship Gfod freely, 
according to the dictates of their own conscience. 
While the Government itself, like the Government 
of Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, etc., rec- 
ognizes an established Church and assists in its 
maintenance, it also often assists in benevolent and 
educational work undertaken by other denomina- 
tions. 

A very important work of this kind is the Ar- 
gentine Evangelical Schools, initiated, promoted 
and carried on by Mr. William C. Morris. The 
report of 1901, just issued, shows there were 
1,820 pupils in various departments ; in the previ- 
ous year there were 1,076. This school is really a 
National school and is assisted in a measure by Con- 
gress, although largely dependent upon private 
subscriptions, which are made to it by not only 
Protestants, but leading Catholics as well. It is 
devoted entirely to the education and care of chil- 
dren of the poor, who cannot enter the public 
schools for want of suitable clothing. 

The general style of the city is cosmopolitan, in 
buildings, in stores, in residences, in dress, in 
habits and customs of the people. It is made up 
of many nationalities. According to the Census of 
1895, there were in the country about 3,000,000 Ar- 
gentines (all children born there of foreign parents 
are Argentines) and about 500,000 Italians — by far 
the largest number of immigrants— and they are 
far better than the immigrants of the same nation- 
ality that come to the United States. Some of the 
best and most intelligent people in all kinds of 
business and industries, especially in agriculture, 
are Italians. Next come the Spaniards, about 
200,000 ; next the French, somewhat less than 



48 

100,000 ; next the English, 22,000 ; next the Swiss, 
15,000, and lastly the North Americans, as we are 
called, 1,400. These figures refer to the year 1895 ; 
the number of foreigners in the country December 
31, 1899, was 1,199,808, an increase of 20 per cent, 
on the returns of the year 1895. 

Immigrants in 44 years 1,935,077 

Italians " " ....1,198,550 

Spaniards " " 361,079 

French " " .... 162,636 

British " " .... 34,031 

Austrians " w ' 31,698 

Germans " " 27,834 

Swiss " kk .... 24,873 

Belgians " •' .... 19,082 

The history of the lighting of streets in the city 
is very interesting, and shows that the city keeps 
pace with others in this respect. The first record 
of public lighting was in 1778, when the city had 
lamps in the shape of a tin of horse-oil with a wick ; 
then came tallow dips, then oil lamps ; then came 
gas in 1885, and in 1888 electricity began to replace 
it in part ; and on December 31st, 1900, the city 
was lighted with 889 arc lamps, 318 incandescent 
of 16 cp., 14,084 gas lamps, many with the Wels- 
bach burner, and 8,590 kerosene lamps, and there 
were 36 electric light stations, with a capital of 9 
million dollars (gold), and with a capacity of 23,300 
electric horse-power. 

In addition to telegraph lines, there are four 
Cable Companies working with Europe and the 
United States, keeping up a close connection 
with all parts of the World. The service is very 
good and prompt ; its time of transmission 
between Buenos Aires and London, " via Gal- 
veston " and Western Union lines and cables, 
is about 60 minutes, and with New York 30 min- 
utes. When we consider the distance and the 
route, we are astonished at the working of this 
line, which crosses over the Andes 12,000 feet above 
the sea level, tunnels under the snow and avalanches 
and reaches the Pacific Ocean, only to take suc- 
cessive leaps by loops along the coast to Tehuan- 
tepec, in Mexico ; over the Isthmus, across and 
under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, to Gal 
veston, speeding then its swift flight over the poles 
of the Western Union to New York City ; and 
then, without stopping to rest, plunges into the 



49 

depths of the Atlantic Ocean and talks to the re- 
ceiver in London in 60 minutes after it left the 
operator's fingers in Buenos Aires. By a wonder- 
ful invention of recent years, this message has 
passed from ocean to land many times and back to 
ocean without stopping, through a " human re- 
lay," —a machine worked by a human. 

It is an interesting fact that the difference in 
level between the highest point on land of the 
lines of the Central and South American Telegraph 
Company and the lowest point of its cables in the 
Pacific Ocean, is about 31,000 feet— six miles. 

This Company has three underground cables 
which cross the Andes and work uninterruptedly, 
notwithstanding that they are cohered with snow, 
in some places at great depth, for about eight 
months of the year. 

The telephone service is in the hands of private 
companies ; the capital invested is over $10,000,000 
(gold); there are about 11,000 subscribers. There 
are no really long-distance lines, except one re- 
cently opened to Rosario. 

The house-fronts, when kept in repair and 
painted, are neat and architecturally beautiful. 
The words "repair" and "painted" must be ex- 
plained. There are no wooden houses, which 
these words might imply ; they are almost always 
made of rough brick, covered with what is called 
"revoque," a covering of plaster or "staff," and 
sometimes artificial stone. The better class of 
houses generally have a base of granite, marble or 
other natural stone three or four feet high, and 
then brick covered with "revoque." Sometimes 
the natural stone extends to the second story, and 
then invariably comes the artificial covering ; after 
a while — two or three years — this begins to discolor 
and flake off, requiring painting and repairing ; 
after ten years it begins to become an " eyesore," 
and at the end of twenty years it must all come off 
at very considerable expense. An instance to be 
cited is the American Church, Methodist Episco- 
pal, which was built 25 years ago, but for five or 
six years past it has presented such a dilapidated 
appearance that it has become necessary to remove 
the revoque from the sides and front from the base 
to the steeple, and renew it at a cost of $10,000 — a 
large sum for a poor church. 

A question came up recently about the Congress 
Palace just mentioned, as to what should be the 
extern ail covering of this grand structure. Porta- 



50 

nately, the commission of engineers to pass upon 
this and other questions decided upon a marble 
covering, and their decision was approved by the 
Government. 

One of the finest constructions now being finished, 
after standing uncompleted for ten years, is the 
beautiful Theatre Colon, which by the kindness of 
Mr. Meano, the architect (who is also the architect 
of the Congress Palace), I am able to show you 
from some slides he has sent me. 

The means of locomotion about the city are abun- 
dant — street cars everywhere, and a. very good and 
economical cab service. There are few coupes, no 
public hansoms and only one or two private ones ; 
but the street carriages are two-horse victorias 
which carry four people. The private turnouts 
are equal to those of any city of the United 
States, especially the horses, which are of th^ 
best imported stock. The " Corso " and the 
approaches to it on a Saturday or Sunday after- 
noon are very attractive. It is in the beautiful 
park of Palermo, one of the suburbs, broad ave- 
nues, beautiful shrubbery, lakes and shady drives, 
and immediately in front the broad river Plate, 
whose further shore is beyond the horizon. 

The people show great taste in the arrangement 
of their stores, and particularly the shop windows; 
from a butcher's shop to a confectioner's and a lace 
store, the fine French taste is visible everywhere. 
A walk along Florida, the principal shopping 
street, a fine asphalt street with no street cars in 
it, is one of the delights of Buenos Aires, and one 
never tires of it. If, for a fortnight, you miss this 
promenade, you hardly know the street, for the ap- 
pearance of the stores has greatly changed in the 
meantime, by a complete change of the decora- 
tions. 

The manner of living is Continental, not even 
English — a cup of coffee with a roll in the early 
morning ; breakfast at 11 to 12:30 (which is a meal 
in courses), and dinner at 7.30, the principal meal 
of the day. This is the custom among all classes, 
high and low ; and there is another custom (it is 
strange how soon you fall into it) : — tea or coffee 
or matte (a species of steeped herb [yerbaj, pressed 
into a peculiar little gourd used as a bowl and 
drawn out of it with a hollow silver tube called a 
matte stick). This 4 o'clock drink is as necessary 
as any meal. In the Government House (Casa de 
Gobierno), the Government provides tea or coffee 



51 

for all of its officials and employes, and little rooms 
are seen in various parts of the building where it 
is made and served from, always accompanied with 
some kind of delicate biscuit. 

Perhaps some current prices may be of interest, 
remembering always that, to get the price into 
American money, you must take only four-tenths 
of the price, to allow for the discount. 

Foreign letter postage is 15c. per 1/2 oz (6c.) 

Domestic letter postage is 5c. perl/2 oz. (2c.) 

Telegrams each of first ten words, 5c. (2c), and 
the successive words 3c. (1.2c). Telegrams in any 
other language than Spanish, double price. Ad- 
dress and signature are counted as in Europe. 

The usual fare for a victoria is a dollar (40c 
gold), whether you take it by the course or by the 
hour. 

The foreign debt of the National Government in 
1900 was $338,771,614 (gold), and the internal debt 
$3,322,500 (gold). There are thirty different loans, 
the interest on which ranges from 3 1/2 to 6 per 
cent. ; the total interest charge per annum in 1900 
was $22,349,900.84 (gold). It requires annually, to 
pay the interest on the total debt,$18, 661, 864 (gold) 
and $11,695,218 (paper). 

The total revenue of the Government in 1900 
was $62,045,458 paper and $37,998,704 (gold). 

It is generally known that in 1890 a terrible 
financial crash came upon the country, at the time 
of the Baring failure ; since then it has had to 
struggle to carry the load imposed by the disasters 
of those days ; however, perhaps not more disas- 
trous than happened to Chicago in 1893, as many 
will attest who were caught in the Columbia Na- 
tional Bank failure and others. 

What language is spoken ? Spanish, which is 
the national language ; but, as might be expected 
in a cosmopolitan city, French, Italian, English and 
German are spoken almost everywhere, particu- 
larly French. 

As English money and Englishmen have done more 
than any to develop the country, have built, own 
and run nearly all the railways, many of the great 
estancias and other businesses, particularly com- 
mercial, the English language is very generally 
used in railroad and navigation circles. 

With these general characteristics of the country 
and the Capital City, I must give you a brief 
resume of the ocean commerce, which has done so 
much for the country, and, situated as it is at these 



52 



antipodes of the world, so necessary. First, a few 
dry facts and then the description of commercial 
facilities. 

In 1899 the value in gold of goods imported was 
about $117,000,000, exported $185,000,000. Of 
these $44,000,000 imports came from Great Britain 
and $15,000,000 from the United States ; Italy 
comes next with $14,000,000 and Germany next 
with $13,000,000, then France with $11,000,000 and 
Belgium with $9,000,000. But exports show a 
different distribution, for France took $41,000,000, 
Germany $29,000,000, Belgium $24,000,000, Great 
Britain $22,000,000, the United States $8,000, (>00 
and Italy $5,000,000. Of the foreign trade Buenos 
Aires had 87.2 per cent, of the imports, Rosario 
8.8, La Plata 1.2 and Bahia Blanca 0.80. Of the 
exports Buenos Aires had 55.5 per cent., Rosario 
18.4, La Plata 2.30 and Bahia Blanca 7.00. These 
ports are mentioned, as some information about 
them is needed to explain the commercial situation. 
Of all the goods reaching the River Plate Coun- 
tries 80 per cent, comes to Argentine. 

In 1885 the National Government began the con- 
struction of very large docks at Buenos Aires ; 
hitherto all the business had been done from the 
anchorage, about 12 miles from the city, the inter- 
vening space being a great mud bar, the water from 




Riachuelo, 1901. 



a depth of 25 feet gradually shoaling to the shore 
line at the city. This was so flat that it was neces- 
sary often to transfer the passengers and goods 



53 



from the lighters, with which they had come thus 
far from the vessels, to small boats and to great 
wheel-carts that went oat a long distance in the 
water to meet the lighters. 

The new docks are very extensive, and lie along 
the immediate front of the city and connected with 
it ; they were designed by the well-known English 
firm of engineers, Hawkshaw and Hayter, and car- 
ried out under the supervision of Mr. James Dob- 
son, the resident engineer. The concessionaire was 
an Argentine citizen, Mr. Madero ; the contractors 
were the experienced English firm of Walker & 
Co., who built the Manchester Ship Canal. These 
men all deserve the highest credit for carrying 
through, under the financial difficulties of the 
X>e»iod above mentioned, a great public work, cost- 
ing $38, 000, 000 (gold). 




Entrance Darsena Norte. 



In order to reach the docks from the sea, a chan- 
nel had to be excavated in the mud foreshore from 
the anchorage. This channel (the North one) is at 
low tide 21 feet deep and 330 feet wide, and about 
5y 2 miles long from its intersection with a chan- 
nel which already existed by previous dredging 
from the other end of the port, at the mouth of a 
small, sluggish stream called the Rlachuelo, in 
which channel there generally is about 19 feet 
of water at low tide. The tide of 2 or 3 feet, de- 
pending largely upon the direction and force of 
the wind and very uncertain, permits vessels draw- 
ing about 23 1/2 feet to enter the port by the North 



54 



Channel. The new port was connected with the 
older port, and now both channels are being used, 
and the depths in them are about as I have stated. 
The Government has recently begun the exten- 
sion of the North Channel straight out to the an- 
chorage, and later will deepen it to 22 feet. In the 
meantime the navigation uses a crooked channel 
beyond the intersection, which has been partly 
dredged, curving round from the South Channel to 
the anchorage. The depth of water in the north- 




Darsena Norte, and docks, &c, 



ern entrance basin of the Port is 21 feet, but in 
the four great docks 23 feet, with tidal gates so 
that the vessels at low tide may be afloat. 

The works are built in the most substantial man- 
ner—masonry walls founded on what is called 
" tosca " (loess), the hard substratum that is found 
in this part of the country. The four docks, or 
basins, are from 620 to 750 yards long, and are all 
170 yards wide, connected by passageways 22 to 27 
yards wide, over which passes by hydraulic turn- 
ing bridges, the foot, vehicular and rail traffic. 
A sea wall in front protects the entire port. On 
the city side are three and four-story brick ware- 



55 



houses, 24 in all, with a total frontage of 11/2 
miles. Sheds, cattle yards, railroad tracks, hy- 
draulic cranes and capstans and other important 
appurtenances give the port modern facilities for 
handling cargo. 

When the docks were opened at the Southern 
end in 1899, the registered tonnage of vessels arriv- 
ing and departing at the Port of Buenos Aires was 
3,800,000 ; in 1901, 8,661,299, more than 100 per 
cent, increase. There are only twelve ports in the 
world of greater tonnage, and none of them show 
such phenomenal growth. 

In 1880, about the time that the works were pro- 
posed, the tonnage was 644,570, and the plans were 
made for 2,000,000 tons only. 




View of the Docks. 



The extraordinary growth of the commerce has 
made it necessary to make an enlargement of the 
facilities, and this was one of the works intrusted 
to me during the last year of my stay in Argen- 
tine. I am able to show you the general plan of 
the actual port with the proposed enlargement, 
which will have free access from the sea and a depth 
of 26 feet, 

The plan also provides facilities for " inflamma- 
bles " — coal, petroleum, gasoline, naphtha and 
some explosives. 

The Standard Oil Company of New 7 York is now 
arranging to bring bulk oil in tank steamers to 
Argentine, and the Shell Transport Company is 
preparing to make a specialty of the importation 
of fuel oil from Texas and the Dutch East Indies. 



m 

The work of enlargement of the port is divided 
into sections, so that it can be carried out section 
by section, as the increase of commerce will re- 
quire. The general plan also includes the protec- 
tion and deepening of the entrance channels. 










•«^ 






Port of Buenos Aires and Plan of enlargement. 

One of the principal ports of the country is 
Rosario. Ocean navigation reaches it, and, for 
that matter, reaches Colastine, the port of the city 
of Santa Fe, the capital of the Province. The reg- 
istered tonnage of the Port of Rosario in 1899 was 
3,000,000, of which more than 2,000,000 were over 
sea vessels, about 700 per annum. The merchan- 
dise entered and cleared was about 1,650,000 tons ; 
67 per cent, of the exportation was wheat. In the 
busy months there are often over 30 vessels seen at 
one time along the wharves and the barranca, where 
the wheat is loaded in bags, sliding down from the 
high cliff 60 feet above the vessel, in what are 
called " canaletas." The imports amount to about 
$10,000,000 (gold), and the exports to $30,000,000. 

The National Government is making a great port 
of Rosario, endowed with all modern facilities for 
handling cargo. It sent out to Europe and the 
United States a full report with all necessary data, 
submitting the project to capitalists and con- 
tractors, with the request for propositions to build 
and operate the port. It will cost from $10,000,000 
to $12,000,000 (gold). 



57 

The contract, after an examination of and report 
upon the projects presented by a Board of which I 
had the honor to be President, has been let to the 
well-known and experienced firm of contractors, 
Mess. Hersent. of Paris, associated with Schneider 
and Co., of Crensot, the Krupp of France. The 
works of construction were inaugurated by the 
President of the Republic on Oct. 26th, 1902. 

The plans of the work have been based on the 
data above mentioned. 

Some important problems had to be solved in 
connection with the improvement of so great a 
river as the Parana, the bed of which is subject to 
such important changes, and also its islands and 
banks. 

The front line of the proposed wharves is over 
21/2 miles long. The masonry piers must go down 
into the tertiary sand below the scour of the river, 
and their foundations will be from 60 to 80 feet 
below the low water level. 

The importance of this work, furnishing a mod- 
ern seaport to the second city of the country, can 
scarcely be over-estimated. In my report on the 
project made in Sept., 1900, I used the following 
words, which two years of subsequent study have 
corroborated : 

"It is safe to say that the establishment of a 
first-class port at Rosario with suitable channels of 
access, will revolutionize completely the commerce 
and industry of this Republic." 

I can now show you some interesting views of the 
more important buildings of the city. 

La Plata port and city were built by the Pro- 
vincial Government, when, in about 1880, the Na- 
tional Government came to Buenos Aires to occupy 
it as the capitol of the nation. It is an excellent 
port; it is built on the shore of the Riode la Plata, 
about 35 miles from Buenos Aires, and cost about 
$14,000,000 (gold). The opening of the national 
port at Buenos Aires has driven most of the com- 
merce from La Plata, but it is capable of being 
made, with a comparatively small sum of money, 
deep enough, in its entrance channel (rive miles 
long) and in its port areas, to accommodate vessels 
of 26 feet draught at low tide; it now has 21 feet. 

The remaining port of importance and rapidly 
growing is outside of the River Plate, in the South, 
Bahia Blanca ; it is the principal shipping port of 
agricultural products by the Great Southern Rail- 
way,, the largest system in the Republic. This port 



58 



is in an estuary of the Ocean, and is a protected 
harbor; in fact, the terminal of the Railway is about 
35 miles from the open ocean. The Railway is 
building a steel pier, 1640 feet long, with spacious 




The Dock, Keel and Bilge Blocks. 



warehouses and 19 miles of siding ; and there will 
be, when all works are completed, over half a mile 
of wharf frontage, supplied with electric cranes. 
The National Government is building in this 




The President inagurating the Dock. 

Estuary at Puerto Militar, or Puerto Belgrano, a 
system of dry docks and basins on a large scale. 
The first dry dock, one of the best and largest in 
the world, is completed and now in use. It was de- 
signed and built under the immediate supervision 



59 



of the well-known Italian Engineer, Cliev. Luigi 
Luiggi, who had charge of similar work at Genoa. 




The San Martin in the dock. 

This dock, built of first class materials and upon 
the most modern methods, can take the largest 
naval or merchant ships of the World, as it has a 
useful length of 713 feet and an entrance width of 
85 feet, and a depth over the sill of 32 1 /2 feet at 




U. S. Battleship Iowa entering the dock. 

mean high-tide, 22 feet at low tide. It has inter- 
mediate gates, so that two or three small vessels 
can be docked at the same time or separately. 



60 



I canDot here go into details of construction which 
were fully given in a paper on the subject submit- 
ted by Mr. Luiggi to the IX International Naviga- 
tion Congress at Diisseldorf, July, 1902. He has 
very kindly given me over 30 lantern slides, of 
which I can show you a few to give you a general 
idea of the dock. The plans, photographs and, 
possibly, a relief model of the dock will be exhibit- 
ed at the World's Fair in St. Louis, in 1904. 

In October last the (J. S. Battleship Iowa, the 
flagship of the South Atlantic Squadron, was 
docked at Puerto Militar. 

You will be interested to know that at Buenos 
Aires, there is a large business with New York by 
means of five steamship lines, and through New 




.£T.t— i J*~ 



Entrance Government House. 



York with Chicago and other cities, from which 
are shipped a large amount of agricultural ma- 
chinery of all classes, from cultivators and plows 
to great steam threshing machines of the J. I. Case 
Co., of Racine, Wisconsin. Not only from Chicago, 
but from all manufacturing districts, the trade of 
our country is increasing. You see our machinery 
everywhere, and it is everywhere considered equal 
to any — Baldwin Locomotives, Jackson and Sharp 
Cars, and Harlan and Hollingsworth's. The Amer- 
ican freight car of 25 and 30 tons is replacing the 



61 



old Belgian, French and English 7 and 10-ton cars. 
If the American cars are not all made in the 
United States, they are copied from ours. The 
most approved bridges tire from the United States. 
I have been over several and examined one on 
the Transandine Railway, built by the Phoenix 
Bridge Co., of Philadelphia, excellent bridges 
and giving entire satisfaction. The Boston Bridge 
Co. sent out some very good bridges. The horse- 
cars by John Stephenson and Co., of New York. 
Electric cars by the J. G. Brill Co. ; and the West- 
inghonse Co., is doing well there. Large quantities 
of Southern and Oregon pine are imported. From 
the U. S. comes all the kerosene used in the coun- 
try. I might go on enumerating many other 









Prensa Building. 

United States products. 1 can well say that^the 
prospects of American trade with Argentine are 
exceedingly good„ 

The Argentine Government is determined to im- 
prove the great rivers of the country by methods 
which have been found to be best in other countries 
under similar conditions. The results of our experi- 
ence upon the Mississippi are being closely watched, 
studied and applied. The reports of the Missis- 
sippi River Commission are of great value to that 
country. I may further say that the engineers, 
and the methods pursued by them are equal to 



62 



those of any country. Every Government Engi- 
neer, to take a prominent position, must have a 
diploma from the Engineering Department of the 
National University. The graduates of this excel- 
lent school are as well equipyjed for their work as 
those from any school in the world ; this I know by 
experience, for four of them (young men) have 
been associated with me as my immediate assistants, 
and in my position as Consulting Engineer of the 
Government, I have been brought into close rela- 
tions with many other engineers, and I have the 
highest opinion of their ability. 

I will now select at random a few subjects of 
special interest, and a few views. 

The Government Building— Casa Gobierno — 
sometimes called the " Casa Rosada " from its light 




Sarmiento School. 



rose color, and in which was my office, is one of the 
most prominent buildings in Buenos Aires. 

It stands in a prominent and central position, 
facing the Ave. Mayo, and looking out on the other 
side over the port and the River Plate. 

One of the finest structures in Buenos Aires is 
the " Prensa " Building, devoted entirely to that 
morning paper. I know of no newspaper offices in 
the world that can compare with this in elegance 
and convenience in all its interior appointments. 

The leading newspapers of Buenos Aires are 
equal to any, both in editorial ability and in tele- 
graphic news from all parts of the world. 



63 

The Sarmiento Scliool gives me an oppor- 
tunity to call to your attention this, one of 
the most learned and best of Presidents, who, 
when he was Minister at Washington, became so 
enamored of our country, and particularly our edu- 
cational methods, that he engaged a large number 
of our young lady teachers to go to Argentine as 
Normal School Teachers. Many of them are there 
yet, after nearly twenty years' service, a service 
that has reflected honor upon themselves and their 
country. 

An institution of importance is the Jockey Club, 
for by its influence the Argentine blooded stock of 
horses has been made equal to any in the world, 
and its domicile is one of the finest and most ex- 
pensive of any club house in existence, and its 
stand at the race course at Palermo is a beautiful 
structure. 

Some views of Recoleta, the principal Cemetery, 
will show you the general method of burying the 
dead. 

It is proper for me to say that considerable of the 
statistical data was obtained from " The Argentine 
Year Book," just issued for the first time (1902), 
and that some of the hydraulics are from a con- 
tribution to that work written by myself. The 
Annual can be obtained from the Moorgate Pub- 
lishing Company, of London. 

I cannot close this lecture without introducing 
you to the President of the Republic, General 
Roca, under whose wise administration the country 
has prospered and by whose determined purpose to 
maintain the peace the impending war with Chili 
has been happily averted and a permanent peace 
established, based on the arbitration of the trouble- 
some question of the international boundaries. 

You may properly ask me why I have brought 
before you the subject of Argentine. I can easily 
reply — First, because in two years of close relations 
with the country, and especially, with the Govern- 
ment officials, I formed a very favorable idea of the 
character of the people and of the possibilities of 
business and profitable enterprise for our own peo- 
ple there. And second, because the high officials 
of the Government and leading men of the Coun- 
try desire to have the ,w Norte Americanos," as we 
are called, come to Argentine with their business 
energy, integrity and ability, and their capital as 
well, to help build up and move forward to its high 



APR 22 i903 

64 

destiny that great country of South America, so 
like our own in its climate, soi], rivers, Coast line 
and other general features. 

If I have succeeded in interesting you in Argen- 
tine, and in giving you more knowledge of it than 
you had before, I shall be satisfied with my efforts 
and feel that I have done a service to that country 
and to my own. 



